A judge handed President Donald Trump a fresh loss by blocking most of his executive order against yet another big law firm he tried to push around.
Susman Godfrey, the firm behind a successful $787 million defamation lawsuit against Fox News, was granted a temporary restraining order Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan.
AliKhan said that the president’s executive order against the firm was “a personal vendetta” and a “shocking abuse of power.”
“The government is purely trying to control what private lawyers may do, which I do not think will withstand constitutional scrutiny,” AliKhan said.
She added that the order, which would prevent the firm’s employees from accessing federal buildings and strip its access to federal contracts held by its clients, “chills the firm’s speech and advocacy” and “threatens reputational harm.”
Susman Godfrey said in a statement Tuesday that its “fight” against the administration is “bigger and more important than any one firm.”
“Susman Godfrey is fighting this unconstitutional executive order because it infringes on the rights of all Americans and the rule of law,” Susman Godfrey said. “This fight is right, it is just, and we are duty-bound to pursue it.”
It added: “We are grateful the court directly addressed the unconstitutionality of the executive order by recognizing it as a ‘shocking abuse of power.’”
The firm is represented by Donald Verrilli, a former solicitor general during the Obama administration and an attorney from Munger, Tolles & Olson, the firm second lady Usha Vance was once employed at.
Verrilli said during the hearing Tuesday that the president’s executive order was “one of the most brazen unconstitutional exercises of executive power in the history of this nation.”
While some law firms have given into the administration’s demands, Susman Godfrey is now the fourth firm after Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale to get a temporary restraining order approved by the courts after suing the administration.
Susman Godfrey filed a motion for a TRO Monday, arguing that the president’s action “threatens the rights of our clients, including their right to legal counsel, while causing irreparable harm to Susman Godfrey.”
It also called the order “an obvious retaliatory move” from the administration.
In his executive order, Trump said that the firm “spearheads efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections,” which it saw as an “unmistakeable reference” to its work defending the results of the 2020 election.
Susman Godfrey represented Dominion Voting Systems in a defamation lawsuit against Fox News last year that accused the news network of spreading false claims that Dominion had sabotaged the 2020 election.
The network ultimately settled the case for $787 million.
U.S. Justice Department lawyer Richard Lawson, who used to work for Attorney General Pam Bondi, has been defending Trump’s executive orders against law firms over the past few weeks.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Lawson argued that the judge should hold off on the TRO until the administration could provide guidance to agencies on how they should formally interact with the firm.
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