By Mike Scarcella
(Reuters) – U.S. law firm Susman Godfrey will ask a judge in Washington on Thursday to permanently bar President Donald Trump’s executive order against it, calling the measure an act of retaliation that trampled its rights under the U.S. Constitution.
The hearing before U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan will be the latest in a series of high-profile court clashes over the Republican president’s orders targeting major law firms for their connections to his political adversaries or stances they have taken.
Trump has been losing the legal battle so far, after judges put his orders against four firms on hold and struck down one of them entirely on May 2.
AliKhan is set to hear arguments in Susman Godfrey’s case at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. The Houston-based firm sued the administration last month, asserting Trump’s executive order violated constitutional protections for free speech and due process.
Trump issued orders against Susman and three other firms — Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block and WilmerHale — that suspended their lawyers’ security clearances, restricted their access to government officials and sought to cancel federal contracts held by their client.
Susman Godfrey in its lawsuit said Trump’s order was retaliation for its defending the integrity of the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
The firm represents election technology supplier Dominion Voting Systems in cases that challenged false claims the election was stolen from Trump through widespread voting fraud.
The U.S. Justice Department has defended Trump’s orders as lawful exercises of presidential authority and urged judges to uphold them.
Nine prominent law firms, including Paul Weiss, Skadden Arps, Latham & Watkins and Kirkland & Ellis, have settled with the White House to avoid similar actions against them by the administration.
Those firms cumulatively pledged nearly $1 billion in free legal services and made other concessions in their deals with Trump. They have defended agreements as being aligned with their principles.
At an earlier hearing in the Susman Godfrey case, AliKhan lamented the settling firms were “capitulating” to the Trump White House.
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario and Chris Reese)
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