On Thursday, President Trump announced his decision to suspend the security clearances of attorneys at Perkins Coie, a law firm associated with Democratic-funded opposition research during the 2016 presidential campaign regarding any connections between Mr. Trump and Russia.
This action against Perkins Coie marks the latest in a series of initiatives by Mr. Trump and his administration aimed at targeting a wide range of perceived adversaries, which include prosecutors from the Justice Department, career intelligence officials, and more recently, private-practice attorneys.
“It is a tremendous honor to sign this. What they’ve done is simply unacceptable. This is weaponization — you could interpret it as weaponization against a political opponent, and such actions should never be permitted again,” Mr. Trump stated as he prepared to sign the executive order in the Oval Office.
The order instructs the attorney general, the director of national intelligence, and other relevant agency leaders to “take appropriate steps in accordance with applicable laws to suspend any active security clearances held by individuals at Perkins Coie, pending an evaluation of whether these clearances align with the national interest.” The order does not reveal the number of lawyers at the firm who could potentially lose their clearances.
It further directs agency heads to limit access to government buildings for attorneys at the firm “when such access might jeopardize national security or otherwise contradict the interests of the United States,” and to locate and terminate any contracts with the firm.
A spokesperson for Perkins Coie stated, “We have reviewed the Executive Order. It is clearly unlawful, and we plan to contest it.”
The repercussions stem from Perkins Coie’s hiring of Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm, to conduct opposition research on then-candidate Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. The arrangement was facilitated by Marc Elias, who was a prominent partner at Perkins Coie and served as a leading attorney for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, but has since departed the firm to establish his own practice.
Fusion GPS subsequently enlisted former British spy Christopher Steele, whose dossier of research circulated among journalists and government officials during the campaign. This dossier, which was handed over to the FBI for examination, claimed that Russia had been involved in an ongoing effort to support Trump and had gathered compromising information about him.
However, much of the material has since been largely discredited, as it contained sensational and unverified rumors linking Trump to Russia. Special counsel John Durham’s 2023 report on the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation indicated that investigators were unable to verify a “single substantive allegation” from Steele’s findings. Steele has maintained his stance on the authenticity of his work.
The dossier ignited a political controversy in January 2017 when it was disclosed that then-FBI Director James Comey had briefed Trump prior to him assuming office about the existence of allegations stemming from the research. The later revelation that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee had funded the dossier intensified scrutiny regarding the reliability of Steele’s research, which Trump, during his presidency, consistently described as “phony” and inaccurate.
Trump and his supporters have long sought to leverage the dossier’s inaccuracies to undermine the entirety of the investigation into links between his 2016 campaign and Russia. However, the investigation commenced weeks before the FBI agents involved received the dossier and was initiated based on a completely different tip — that a Trump campaign aide had suggested knowledge of Russia possessing compromising information on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent, long before Russia was identified as responsible for hacking Democratic emails.
Moreover, while special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation did not conclude that there was a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign to manipulate the election, it did recognize a significant effort by the Kremlin to influence on behalf of the Republican candidate, alongside evidence that the campaign welcomed this support.
Since taking office, the Trump administration has dismissed Justice Department prosecutors involved in special counsel Jack Smith’s inquiries into Trump. The administration has also announced the removal of security clearances from lawyers who provided legal support for Smith, as well as from numerous former intelligence officials who endorsed a 2020 letter asserting that the Hunter Biden laptop incident exhibited characteristics of a Russian disinformation operation.
The executive order regarding Perkins Coie also claims that the firm is involved in what the Trump administration describes as unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.
This aligns with a directive from Attorney General Pam Bondi last month, urging the Justice Department’s civil rights division to “investigate, eliminate and penalize illegal” DEI “preferences, mandates, policies, programs and activities within the private sector and in educational institutions that receive federal funding.”
