President Trump initiated a fresh attack on lawyers on Tuesday, singling out a firm where a former prosecutor who investigated him once worked as the White House pursues vengeance against the profession he blames for his legal troubles.
An executive order from Mr. Trump signed focused on Jenner & Block, a prominent white-shoe firm that once employed Andrew Weissmann, a longtime deputy to Robert S. Mueller III, who as a special counsel investigated Mr. Trump in his first term over possible links to Russia.
The order underscored the extent to which the president, who faced four criminal indictments after he left office in 2021, now aims to exact a steep price from anyone associated with past investigations of him.
Days earlier, Mr. Trump significantly expanded his campaign of retaliation against lawyers he dislikes, issuing a far-reaching memorandum that threatened to use government power to punish any firms that, in his view, unfairly challenged his administration. Mr. Trump has declared his efforts will clean up a legal profession that has become tainted by politics and unethical behavior.
At the White House on Tuesday, Mr. Trump called Mr. Weissmann a “bad guy” and said he would also declassify additional documents from the Russia investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, that began in 2016.
After serving in a senior role for the special counsel investigation, Mr. Weissmann spent many years as a television pundit, sharply criticizing Mr. Trump’s conduct. Mr. Weissmann, who left Jenner & Block in 2021, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The executive order signed Tuesday declares that many big law firms “take actions that threaten public safety and national security, limit constitutional freedoms, degrade the quality of American elections, or undermine bedrock American principles.”
The order also criticizes firms for doing pro bono work, or representing clients who are indigent or have limited financial resources to afford lawyers.
Jenner & Block, the president’s order decreed, “has abandoned the profession’s highest ideals” and therefore its employees should not have security clearances, federal government contracts, access to federal government buildings or be hired by the government.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the law firm described its storied history of paid and pro bono work and pointed out that a federal judge had temporarily blocked the administration from imposing penalties on at least one firm subject to Mr. Trump’s orders, Perkins Coie. “We remain focused on serving and safeguarding our clients’ interests with the dedication, integrity and expertise that has defined our firm for more than 100 years and will pursue all appropriate remedies,” the statement continued.
Mr. Trump’s accusations against the firm range from the personal to the political, claiming that Jenner & Block rehired Mr. Weissmann after he worked on the Mueller investigation, which Mr. Trump called “entirely unjustified.” The order also accuses Mr. Weissmann of misconduct.
Last week, one of the targeted firms, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, struck a deal with the administration to spare itself from a punitive order Mr. Trump had issued.
As part of that deal, the law firm agreed to provide $40 million worth of legal work in support of Mr. Trump’s efforts to fight antisemitism on college campuses, as well as other issues.
The president has embarked on his campaign against lawyers by denouncing what he calls “lawfare” or the “weaponization” of the legal system against him.
He and his allies have long claimed that Democrats asserted improper control over prosecutors’ offices to bring cases against him. Current and former law enforcement officials say those accusations are baseless, and that what the president and his senior aides are doing is stripping away the ability of institutions like the F.B.I. and Justice Department to pursue such cases again.
His ever-growing list of targets in the legal world has led to a heated debate among lawyers about how best to respond. Some have sharply criticized the president’s actions, and the decision by Paul, Weiss to cut a deal rather than fight in court, as Perkins Coie chose to do.
Vanita Gupta, who is a civil rights lawyer and a former Justice Department official, said Saturday that Mr. Trump is attacking “ the very foundations of our legal system by threatening and intimidating litigants who aim to hold our government accountable to the law and the Constitution.”
The executive branch “should neither fear nor punish those who challenge it,” Ms. Gupta said, “and should not be the arbiter of what is frivolous — there are protections in place to address that. This moment calls for courage and collective action, not capitulation, among lawyers and the legal profession.”
Mr. Trump also signed an executive order declassifying some documents from the Russia investigation, while ordering that two separate categories of documents from that work remain classified.
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