President Trump on Friday opened a third attack against a private law firm, restricting the business activities of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison just days after a federal judge ruled such measures appeared to violate the Constitution.
The president signed an executive order to suspend security clearances held by people at the firm, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest. The order also seeks to sharply limit Paul, Weiss employees from entering government buildings, getting government jobs or receiving any money from federal contracts.
The move widened an assault by Mr. Trump on some of nation’s most prominent law firms. Legal experts have warned the aggressive campaign sets a dangerous precedent that threatens not just the ability of lawyers to do their jobs, but also the ability of private citizens to obtain lawyers to represent them.
The order said it was intended to end “government sponsorship of harmful activity” at Paul, Weiss and specifically punish one of its former lawyers, Mark F. Pomerantz.
Mr. Trump mentioned Mr. Pomerantz by name in an angry speech Friday at the Justice Department, where he complained about prosecutors and private lawyers who pursued cases against him, calling them “really bad people.” Mr. Trump, in the same speech, claimed he was ending the “weaponization” of the Justice Department, though his move against the firm showed he will continue using his power to exact retribution on his opponents.
Mr. Pomerantz had tried to build a criminal case against Mr. Trump several years ago when he worked at the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The White House announcement called Mr. Pomerantz “an unethical lawyer” who tried to “manufacture a prosecution against President Trump.”
The order also cited a case brought by a Paul, Weiss partner against pro-Trump rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the firm’s diversity policies as reasons for the restrictions.
A spokesperson for the firm said in a statement that Mr. Pomerantz retired from the firm in 2012 and had not been affiliated with it for years.
The spokesperson also noted a ruling this week from a federal judge who temporarily barred the Trump administration from carrying out many of the punishments detailed in an executive order against the Perkins Coie law firm. The rationale behind that Trump order, Judge Beryl A. Howell of Federal District Court in Washington said, sent “little chills down my spine.”
In the Perkins Coie order, Mr. Trump had sought to block the firm’s lawyers from entering government buildings, conferring with government officials or getting government jobs. During a hearing before Judge Howell this week, a lawyer representing Perkins Coie said the order, were it allowed to stand, would kill the firm.
Mr. Trump said he issued the order because of Perkins Coie’s role representing Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign and because of its connection to a dossier of unsubstantiated allegations against him.
Mr. Trump had previously signed a memo stripping security clearances from any lawyers at a different firm, Covington & Burling, who were involved in representing Jack Smith, the former special counsel who pursued two separate indictments of the president in 2023.
