“Hold it; this is a good one. Is everybody listening?” President Donald Trump, about to sign a sheaf of executive orders, was so jazzed up about this one he interrupted the aide explaining the document. Sharpie in hand, Trump waved off a reporter asking about U.S. troops in Europe: “Wait, I just want to savor this one, please.”
Warning to law firms: Stand up for the rule of law while you can
One by one, Trump is fencing in all his potential opponents. Now he’s sending a clear warning to lawyers to back off.
February 27, 2025 The Washington Post
And so the president of the United States signed an extraordinary document, aimed at a single law firm — indeed, a single lawyer — for the egregious offense of representing a client.
“Deranged Jack Smith,” Trump declared. “We’re going to call it the Deranged Jack Smith signing.” More formally titled “Suspension of Security Clearances and Evaluation of Government Contracts,” the order revoked the security clearance for Peter Koski, a Covington partner, and called for terminating any contracts the government has with the firm. (In fact, there aren’t any.)
Koski’s offense? He and Lanny Breuer, another Covington partner, agreed to represent Smith, the special counsel who investigated and indicted Trump during the Biden era. Trump has called for jailing Smith “and his Thug Prosecutors.”
According to a financial disclosure form Smith filed on leaving the Justice Department, Covington has already provided $140,000 in pro bono legal services to Smith. That unhinged the acting U.S. attorney for the D.C., Ed Martin, who posted on X a line that bore his trademark unethical malevolence. “We’ll be in touch soon. #NoOneIsAboveTheLaw.”
Trump has issued executive orders that are more significant and others that are more malign. But this one encapsulates the myriad dangers that Trump presents in his second term. He has been unleashed as never before to operationalize his petty vindictiveness, revoking security clearances for former intelligence officials who have crossed him and yanking security details for other opponents.
Now, he not only wants to deploy the Justice Department to go after Smith but also wants to ensure Smith does not receive proper legal representation. As Trump well knows (because his own lawyers had to obtain security clearances to represent him in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case), Koski and other Covington lawyers need those clearances to do their job as Smith’s counsel.
When a reporter asked about the wisdom of targeting individual law firms and lawyers, Trump made clear that retribution was his goal. “Excuse me, I’ve been targeted for four years – longer than that,” he said. “You don’t tell me about targeting. I was the target of corrupt politicians for four years and then four years after that, so don’t tell me about targeting.” There is something even more sinister going on here. Trump is happy to exact the smallest measures of revenge against Smith and those who would dare to help him. But this order isn’t just aimed at Koski and Covington. It is designed to intimidate law firms considering taking on the administration. The message of the order was clear: Do so at your peril. We will come after you.
Trump said as much. “And you’ll be doing this with other firms as time goes by, right?” he asked staff secretary Will Scharf. Trump invoked “the weaponization of our system by law firms, even pro bono work they’re doing in order to clog up government, stop government,” adding, “nobody knows about it more than me, and hopefully, that’ll never happen again.”
Weaponization of our system. What Trump calls weaponization is basic lawyering: firms using their expertise and fulfilling their professional responsibility to do public service work, whether representing individual clients free of charge or suing the government over contested actions. As the president well understands, advocacy groups and public interest law firms don’t have the capacity to conduct this litigation on their own. They need the big private firms, with their resources and personnel. Trump wants those lawyers out of the way.
He is succeeding, even before the executive order. The major New York law firms, significant players in litigation against the Trump administration during his first term, are nowhere to be found in the flood of second-term litigation. They have privately made clear that they are not interested in taking the risk that Trump will target them and scare off their corporate clients, according to lawyers involved in the litigation. Law firms are similarly reluctant to let their lawyers take on pro bono representation of former Biden administration officials and others who, like Smith, could be in the Trump Justice Department’s crosshairs.
This is of a piece with Trump’s larger strategy to dismantle or defang every potential vector of resistance and opposition, in and outside government. Inspectors general, fired. The special counsel (not to be confused with prosecutors like Smith but the official entrusted with protecting government whistleblowers), fired. Generals ousted and, chillingly, the senior lawyers in the military branches, the ones who could tell Trump his orders are unlawful, fired. Prosecutors and FBI agents summarily transferred and instructed that dissent will not be tolerated.
Outside government, the media is instructed what language they must use (Gulf of America) at risk of losing access. The White House Correspondents’ Association is relieved of its traditional responsibility for organizing the media pool coverage of the president, with the White House itself asserting the power to pick and choose among favored news organization. This is the familiar — and terrifying — authoritarian playbook and it’s all happening here.
Now, the lawyers. It matters little whether Trump’s move receives front-page coverage. He enjoys the small-minded pleasure of exacting retribution — watch the video of Trump tossing out the signing pen, with a satisfied snarl. “Here, why don’t you send it to Jack Smith”— and the larger bonus of bullying potential opponents into submission
Warning to Big Law: those who fail to stand up while they can for the rule of law may rue its erosion and regret their silence.