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Government lawyers have not explained why they reversed course after abandoning their defense of the president
Alex Woodward in New York Tuesday 03 March 2026 23:28 GMT- Bookmark
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Donald Trump’s Department of Justice said it was dropping its defense of the president’s executive orders against law firms that joined cases against him and his administration.
But government attorneys abruptly U-turned on Tuesday, as, without explanation, the Justice Department told a federal appeals court that it was withdrawing a motion to abandon the fight.
The motion to dismiss the appeal was filed less than 24 hours earlier.
Four high-profile law firms are waging a legal battle against the president’s orders, which stripped their security clearances, blocked them from government contracts and denied them access to government buildings.
Federal judges have all ruled in their favor, with one judge saying last year that the president “makes no bones about why” he targeted the firms, while critics say the executives' orders cast a chilling effect that threatens representation for groups and individuals who are taking Trump to court.
open image in galleryThe Department of Justice is withdrawing a motion to abandon its defense of Trump’s executive orders targeting law firms (AFP via Getty Images)Trump himself appeared to concede that he was targeting his executive orders against law firms that he believes are impeding his agenda, telling Fox News last year that “we have a lot of law firms we’re going after.”
The legal battles made their way to a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., which has not yet heard arguments in the case.
On Monday, the Justice Department said it was moving to “voluntarily dismiss” its appeal of lower-court decisions against the administration. Associate attorney general Stanley Woodward and deputy associate attorney general Abhishek Kambli submitted the brief motion, which did not provide a reason for dropping the case.
The next morning, the Justice Department filed another motion reversing course.
Attorneys argued the court should grant a motion to withdraw the document, saying it was the “prerogative of Defendant-Appellants to pursue this appeal” and that there “is no prejudice to Plaintiff-Appellees in the Court granting this motion.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how the judges presiding over the case will react.
But law firms — which less than 24 hours earlier were celebrating the end of the case — now want the court to reject the Justice Department’s reversal.
“Hours after asking the court to dismiss its appeal, the Department of Justice has abruptly reversed course and moved to continue its defense of the unconstitutional executive orders,” a spokesperson for Perkins Coie said in a statement. “It offered no explanation to either the parties or the court for its reversal. We remain committed to defending our firm, our people, and our clients.”
The firm Susman Godfrey said it would “defend itself and the rule of law — without equivocation.”
open image in galleryThe president issued a series of executive orders against law firms who represented opponents and causes against his agenda, triggering a legal battle that has reached a federal appeals court in DC (Getty Images)Trump’s apparent beef with Perkins Coie dates back to a federal investigation into connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian agents to determine whether aides and officials had conspired to influence the outcome of that election. The firm represented Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee and worked with a research firm that produced the now-discredited dossier that alleged contacts between Trump and Russia.
Perkins Coie contracted Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research, which Fusion enlisted former British spy Christopher Steele to perform. Steele’s dossier, which was later turned over to the FBI, alleged Russia’s years-long campaign to compile compromising information against then-candidate Trump.
Now-former Perkins lawyers Marc Elias and Michael Sussman were both named in Trump’s order. Neither has worked for the firm in years. Since 2020, Elias has led the voting rights and civil rights litigation-tracking platform Democracy Docket, which has tracked hundreds of Trump-related cases.
“What they’ve done is just terrible,” Trump said when he signed the order last year. “It’s weaponization, you could say weaponization against a political opponent, and it should never be allowed to happen again.”
A separate group of law firms has controversially pledged pro bono legal work for the White House worth roughly $1 billion to avoid the administration’s sanctions.
Civil liberties group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said the Justice Department’s reversal “is an embarrassment.”
The president’s “indefensible vendetta was a shocking abuse of power the day the executive orders were announced,” according to the group. “It was unconstitutional yesterday. It’s unconstitutional today. And it’ll still be unconstitutional tomorrow.”
The Independent has requested comment from the Justice Department.
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