President Donald Trump’s Justice Department (DOJ) is asking the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to allow it to take security clearances away from law firms that accept cases with which they disagree — even though that same precedent could empower future Democratic presidents to persecute Republican law firms.
“The DOJ returned to court Thursday and told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that President Donald Trump's executive orders to strip elite law firms of security clearances and tear up their government contracts must be revived, even if that means a Democrat eventually comes into power and deems MAGA lawyers enemies of the state,” reported Law and Crime on Thursday. “Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan, U.S. Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard and U.S. Circuit Judge Neomi Rao — two appointees of Barack Obama and a lone Donald Trump appointee, respectively — formed the three-judge panel in a case the DOJ was prepared to drop in March.”
Despite the judges previously seeming poised to throw out the case, prompting the government to withdraw it, Trump’s officials are arguing that they have a right to penalize law firms who criticize the president.
“In a bit of a preamble, the DOJ attorney claimed losses across the board boiled down to district court judges rushing to block ‘orders that they clearly didn't like the content of’ — effectively nullifying the president's unreviewable ‘security clearance determinations’ and restoring them without authority,” Law and Crime reported. It added that Judge Pillard then asked about whether their argument, if implemented, could boomerang against Republicans one day.
"So if an incoming president — let's say a Democrat — says, I think that any lawyer who represents a Republican, by virtue of that representation, even if the lawyer is him or herself a Democrat, I think that the representation of my enemies is a threat to national security. So any lawyer who represents a Republican immediately today has their security clearance revoked?" Pillard asked.
Attorney Abhishek Kambli, representing the government, answered Pillard’s question in the affirmative, saying that he believed impeachment, elections and congressional laws alone could strip the president of his right to penalize political opponents through their law firms.
"And your view is — the pardon power example is where you go — that this power over security clearances is so intrinsic that even … you could be race-based, and it could be race-based," and there would be no judicial review, Srivinasan asked. Kambli once again agreed.
"If a president said, I don't trust law firms that represent Catholics, law firms that represent African Americans, law firms that represent Asian Americans, and so just law firms that represent people in those three groups, they have to give me lists of their clients who are under control by people in those three groups, and we will deny security clearances to any lawyer in those firms. Political question? Nonjusticiable?" she asked.
"So Your Honor, yes, because of the threshold question before you even examine any of those facts," Kambli replied. Other attorneys speaking at the trial echoed Kambli’s views.
Earlier this month, Trump lost his appeal of a personal lawsuit he launched against former Secretary Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, the Democratic National Committee, the law firm Perkins Coie, LLC and others he blames for investigations into his connections to Russia.
U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks wrote in his ruling that Trump has a "pattern of abuse of the courts" by filing such lawsuits specifically for political purposes, saying this "undermines the rule of law" and "amounts to obstruction of justice."
"Here, we are confronted with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, which was completely frivolous, both factually and legally and which was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose," he added.
