President Donald Trump lost it with aides after learning of reports that his administration had dropped its ongoing efforts to target law firms on his hit list.
Within the first several months of taking office, Trump issued an executive order targeting law firms that employed lawyers such as former special counsels Robert Mueller and Jack Smith. There were other targets on Trump's list, and some of those firms acquiesced to his demands of billions of dollars in free legal services, reported the Wall Street Journal. Others, however, remain in ongoing litigation against the White House.
In a report last week, The Journal noticed that the Justice Department had dropped the ball on the case. “Top aides” tried to stop the defense of the law firm orders without directly telling Trump. The DOJ submitted a filing on Monday night indicating it would abandon all defense of the Trump order.
“I never signed off on that,” the president told aides in the Oval Office.
Staff who spoke about the incident described it as "an angry outburst by Trump."
Trump then demanded that White House officials ensure the DOJ was changing course and continuing his ongoing battle with the law firms.
The following day, the DOJ was forced to reverse its position.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced, “At the president’s direction, the Department of Justice quickly amended this filing."
The DOJ had mere days before the initial brief was due in a case meant to consolidate the suits against the order when it announced it would no longer defend it. The firms then took issue with the DOJ reversing itself, the report continued, saying it was an “unexplained about-face."
There are four law firms expected to respond at the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Washington, D.C. Circuit later this month.