The Department of Justice hit back at four law firms on President Trump’s target list late Friday in a final written brief before arguing in person next month.
The department in its brief doubled down on its contention that White House sanctions singling out Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey were within President Donald Trump’s authority. Four federal judges who declared the orders unconstitutional overstepped in blocking the orders, DOJ argued.
“All of the plaintiffs jump straight into the merits and attempt to memory-hole justiciability toward the end of their briefs, despite having the burden to establish it in the first place,” the department’s brief said.
The filing is the Trump administration’s last chance to brief the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit before squaring off with the four law firms’ outside counsel at oral arguments on May 14. The firms will try to convince an appellate panel to affirm district court rulings that the executive orders violated their constitutional rights, while Justice aims to reverse the rulings and revive the orders.
An appellate panel hasn’t been set in the case.
Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli is leading the Trump administration’s appeal. Kambli joined the associate attorney general’s office after bringing legal challenges to Biden-era programs for the Kansas attorney general’s office.
Prominent members of the appellate bar have taken up the firms’ cases, including a trio of former solicitors general. Elizabeth Prelogar, who led Justice’s Supreme Court litigation under President Joe Biden, represents Jenner & Block along with colleagues from Cooley LLP. Paul Clement and Donald Verrilli held the same role under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and they represent WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey. Perkins Coie hired Williams & Connolly, an elite DC trial firm, for its case.
Trump pointed to the firms’ connections to lawyers and cases he views as hostile when last year he threatened to revoke their security clearances, cancel government business with firm clients, and block lawyers of the firms from entering federal government buildings. The firms won court injunctions against Trump’s directives. Justice appealed the rulings to the DC Circuit, which consolidated the cases.
The law firms allege Trump targeted them for protected First Amendment activity, as evidenced by Trump’s citation of their connections to cases and clients adverse to him. Justice argues the president acted within his authority to order agencies to review security clearances and government contracts.
“Plaintiffs’ arguments are full of constitutional platitudes that fall flat when compared to the actual operative sections of the Executive Orders,” Kambli wrote in the Justice brief. “For example, the First Amendment is not a shield to prevent the government from exercising its authority to combat the unprotected conduct of racial discrimination in hiring or litigation misconduct by former government attorneys and others.”
“And beyond their First Amendment arguments,” Kambli added, “all Plaintiffs muster are thin arguments based on scattershot constitutional provisions ranging from due process to separation of powers to right to counsel.”
Trump’s orders will be debated in court on the same day that the same appellate panel will hear arguments over Trump’s revocation of security clearances for attorney Mark Zaid. Zaid represented the whistleblower whose allegation that Trump attempted to extort Ukraine for dirt on his political opponent led to the president’s first impeachment.
The embattled firms have received a flood of support from across the legal profession in recent weeks, with several lawyer coalitions and nonprofits filing friend-of-the-court briefs backing the district court rulings. Only a handful of Big Law firms signed onto briefs, while several members of the lawyer groups opted for anonymity.
The executive branch received one supportive amicus brief, which was filed by a coalition of conservative legal groups and gun rights organizations.
The case is: Perkins Coie v. DOJ, D.D.C., 25-05241, 4/10/26
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