Three is a trend: Trump Admin Makes Clear Their Goal Is to Silence Legal Opposition to Their Agenda
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, March 6th, 2025
CONTACT
Caitlin Legacki, press@stopgovernmentcensorship.org
Late today, the Administration created a third data point in their shocking pattern of targeting the legal establishment to send a stark warning to potential opponents: "challenge the Trump Administration’s agenda at your own peril."
First: the White House made news by revoking security clearances from key attorneys at the white-shoe law firm Covington & Burling, in retaliation for their work with Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, and evaluating whether the federal government can cancel its contracts with the firm.
Then: acting US Attorney Ed Martin sent a letter to Dean Wiliam Treanour of Georgetown Law School, threatening legal investigations and refusing to accept any Georgetown students–or students of any other law school or university–for internships if the school includes even a whiff of "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" in their curriculum. The crime: the Administration, and Martin as a vehicle for their political agenda, believes any curriculum involving DEI is “unacceptable.”
Now: Thursday evening, the White House announced an attack on the prominent law firm Perkins Coie. The law firm is known as a major provider of legal services to political candidates, nonprofits and advocacy organizations.
The punishment for Perkins Coie–and clients who stand by the firm? The White House is demanding a review of all security clearances at the firm, limiting access for Perkins Coie attorneys to Federal Government buildings (including federal courthouses and regulatory agencies), starting a review of all federal contracts and a blanket ban on hiring anyone who previously worked at Perkins Coie.
The Administration’s goal: To bleed these firms dry, and send a message to existing or potential clients that they won’t receive a fair hearing if they hire these attorneys.
What the Administration is admitting: Challenges in court to their blatantly illegal behavior are working, and that instead of standing and defending their actions in court, the Administration would rather attempt to intimidate law firms from standing with their clients in defense of the rule of law.
"Every law firm in the country just got the message: stay in your lane and do not question the supremacy of this Administration, or suffer the Government Censorship Agenda," said Cole Leiter, executive director of Americans Against Government Censorship. "With these three significant attacks on the legal establishment, the Trump administration is trying to obstruct proceedings in the one branch of government that is throwing up barriers to their agenda, and make it impossible to file legal challenges to their unlawful and extralegal pursuits. This is a breathtaking attack on political opponents and it amounts to the kind of power that no administration--Republican or Democrat--should have in a free country."
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