Follow up to Trump Using Another Executive Order to Take Revenge on Law Firms – See also

• The New York Times – “The Trump administration on Monday abandoned its attempts to impose potentially crippling executive orders against law firms that refused to capitulate to the president, walking away from its appeal of victories the firms had won against the White House. With a brief due this week, Justice Department lawyers told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that they were no longer interested in pursuing the cases and were voluntarily asking the court to dismiss them. The decision is the White House’s most significant acknowledgment that the executive orders cannot be successfully defended in court. The move is particularly striking given that some firms opted to reach deals in a bid to head off executive orders that President Trump’s Justice Department said it would no longer stand behind. The battle over the executive orders had roiled the legal establishment and led many firms to submit to Mr. Trump rather than face the existential threat his directives represented. The orders barred the firms from government business and suggested that their clients could lose government contracts, spurring widespread panic in the legal profession…”
• WSJ.com / paywalled – Justice Department plans to withdraw appeals defending punitive executive orders issued by the president, people familiar with the matter said..
• Reuters…The ⁠Trump administration ⁠plans to ​drop its appeals ‌defending executive orders ‌that ⁠sanctioned ⁠four major U.S. law firms, ​the Wall Street Journal ​reported on Monday, citing ⁠people ⁠familiar with ⁠the matter. The ​U.S. Justice Department is ​expected ⁠to abandon appeals to ⁠trial-court rulings against the actions targeting ⁠Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie and Susman Godfrey, the report said.
• See also Washington Post via MSN – Justice Dept. plans to abandon defense of orders targeting law firms. The Trump administration is planning to abandon its effort to punish several law firms that hired President Donald Trump’s perceived foes or took on cases he disliked, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move would effectively admit defeat and leave Trump’s sanctions on the firms lambasting his executive orders as unconstitutional and retaliatory…”
• CNN – Trump administration drops suits against law firms with ties to Democrats and other Trump foes