The executive order, issued Thursday, directed Trump’s attorney general and director of national intelligence to suspend security clearances for the firm’s employees, barring them from access to federal buildings while also cancelling government contracts with the firm, which employed Robert S. Mueller III.
Mueller retired from the firm in 2021, the law firm said. He oversaw a federal investigation into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election, an investigation Trump and his allies have attacked as a “hoax.”
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
“WilmerHale is also bent on employing lawyers who weaponize the prosecutorial power to upend the democratic process and distort justice,” Trump’s order stated.
In response, WilmerHale said Thursday that the firm had a “longstanding tradition of representing a wide range of clients” in matters involving members of both parties.
The sections of the order on which WilmerHale was granted relief had to do with access to federal buildings and the cancellation of government contracts with the firm.
The judge wrote that WilmerHale’s “very survival is at stake.”
“It is clear that plaintiff’s business is inextricably intertwined with interactions with the federal government,” wrote District Judge Richard Leon, of the federal district court in Washington, D.C.
The law firm has more than 1,100 cases currently involving or before the federal government, the ruling said.
“The injuries to plaintiff here would be severe and would spill over to its clients and the justice system at large,” Leon added.
At the time, a spokeswoman said the firm was leaving behind about 45,000 square feet of space in the Miami Valley Research Park for about 49,000 square feet of space in Miami Twp., in an office building at 3050 Newmark Drive.
WilmerHale opened a business services center in the Miami Valley Research Park in 2012, at 3139 Research Blvd, housing mostly administrative and management functions there.
About the Author
