DOJ Seeks to Remove Judge in Perkins Coie Suit Against Trump (1)

The judge overseeing Perkins Coie’s lawsuit responding to President Donald Trump’s executive order should be disqualified from the case, lawyers for the administration said.

DC federal Judge Beryl Howell’s comments calling Trump an authoritarian and about the Robert Mueller investigation at a recent hearing should disqualify her, Chad Mizelle, acting associate attorney general, and Richard Lawson, a deputy US associate attorney general, argued in a brief Friday.

“This court has repeatedly demonstrated partiality against and animus towards the president,” Lawson said. “Reasonable observers may well view this court as insufficiently impartial.”

Lawson requested that the case be transferred to a judge with no involvement in the investigations by Mueller or former special counsel John Durham and “who has not demonstrated a pattern of hostility towards defendants.”

The motion comes after Judge Howell, appointed by President Barack Obama, issued a temporary restraining order against the implementation of part of Trump’s March 6 order. The directive rescinded security clearances for Perkins Coie’s lawyers—a part of the order that was allowed to stand—and restricted their access to federal government buildings, which the judge enjoined.

Howell did not immediately return a request for comment. Williams & Connolly, who is representing Perkins Coie in the suit, didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Lawson and Mizelle took aim at comments Howell made at a Women’s White Collar Defense Association event in November 2023. There, she said the country was at a crossroads and on a path would lead to authoritarianism, according to a video excerpt the lawyers included in their brief.

Howell’s remarks, which didn’t mention Trump specifically, also caught the attention of New York Republican US Rep. Elise Stefanik, who filed a judicial misconduct complaint to the Judicial Council of the District of Columbia Circuit in December 2023.

The Trump administration’s lawyers also cited at the March 12 hearing what they called Howell’s “condescending” comments.

At that hearing, Howell said Trump had a “bee in his bonnet” about Fusion GPS, a Washington intelligence firm retained by a former Perkins Coie partner to conduct opposition research on Trump for his client, the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign. Trump cited the resulting Steele dossier in his executive order targeting Perkins Coie.

“He keeps bringing it up,” Howell said at the March 12 hearing. “It’s like he doesn’t want any of us to forget Fusion GPS.”