By Mike Scarcella and David Thomas
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump signed an government order on Tuesday that takes motion towards the legislation agency Jenner & Block, for what a White Home official described as the corporate’s actions to weaponize the federal government and authorized system.
“We have taken motion towards quite a few legislation corporations which have participated both within the weaponization of presidency, the weaponization of the authorized system for political ends, or have in any other case engaged in unlawful or inappropriate actions,” mentioned White Home Employees Secretary Will Scharf.
Jenner & Block didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the order, whose textual content was not instantly out there.
The agency was previously residence to Andrew Weissmann, a prime prosecutor concerned in U.S. Particular Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s meddling within the 2016 presidential election. Weissmann was at Jenner from 2006 to 2011, and returned there in 2020 after serving on Mueller’s prosecution staff.
Trump issued the brand new order lower than per week after Wall Road legislation agency Paul Weiss made a cope with the president to flee an government order that restricted its entry to authorities buildings and officers and threatened federal contracts held by its purchasers.
One other giant agency focused by Trump, Perkins Coie, sued the administration earlier this month, alleging Trump’s actions have been unconstitutional and had brought about purchasers to desert the agency.
A choose in Washington on March 12 briefly blocked elements of the Perkins Coie order, discovering the agency’s lawsuit was more likely to succeed.
Trump on Friday directed the Justice Division to advocate comparable strikes towards legal professionals and legislation corporations that deal with immigration instances or that sued the federal government over the previous eight years — a bunch that features most of the largest U.S. corporations.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Nandita Bose and Mike Scarcella in Washington and David Thomas in Chicago; Modifying by Chizu Nomiyama, David Bario and Deepa Babington)
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