A recent memorandum issued by President Donald Trump empowers the attorney general and the homeland security secretary to impose sanctions on law firms that file lawsuits deemed “frivolous.” This action marks a significant escalation in Trump’s ongoing campaign against legal firms, according to legal experts and former Justice Department officials who spoke with NBC News.
The presidential directive, titled “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court,” also instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to consider revoking security clearances for attorneys or terminating federal contracts of law firms if she finds their lawsuits against the administration to be “unreasonable” or “vexatious.”
Issued on Saturday, the memo follows executive orders targeting three specific law firms: Covington & Burling, which offered pro bono legal assistance to former special counsel Jack Smith—responsible for indicting Trump; Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and collaborated with an opposition research firm that compiled a discredited dossier on Trump; and Paul Weiss, where former partner Mark Pomerantz attempted to build a criminal case against Trump during his tenure at the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
The executive orders have resulted in the suspension of security clearances for employees of these firms and restricted their access to certain federal buildings, complicating their ability to represent clients effectively.
Of particular concern, the orders also indicated that federal contracts held by clients of these law firms would be subject to review. Brad Karp, chair of Paul Weiss and criticized for striking a deal with Trump last week, acknowledged this threat in a leaked communication to employees.
“The executive order could easily have dismantled our firm,” Karp stated. “Specifically, it endangered our clients’ government contracts and access to government services if they continued to retain us as their legal counsel.”
Steve Bannon, a Trump ally, commented last week that the president’s intent is to financially cripple law firms viewed as adversaries.
“He’s set on putting those law firms out of business,” Bannon declared. “Our objective is to drive you out of business and bankrupt you.”
In response, a coalition of 22 civil rights organizations—including the NAACP and the ACLU—denounced the new memorandum in a statement, arguing that it aims to “chill dissent, evade accountability, and weaponize government resources to target opponents of this administration and its unlawful actions.”
White House officials defended the memorandum.
“President Trump is fulfilling his commitment to ensure the judicial system is no longer weaponized against the American people. His only retribution is success and historic accomplishments for the American populace,” stated assistant White House press secretary Taylor Rogers in remarks to news outlets.
David Laufman, a former head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division who has served under both Republican and Democratic administrations, criticized the use of executive power to intimidate legal professionals as unprecedented.
“If anyone in any modern White House had ever devised such an authoritarian approach to suppress the legal profession, the Attorney General and White House Counsel would have discreetly intervened and swiftly put an end to the plan,” he commented via text message.
Representatives from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond promptly to requests for comments.
A former senior Justice Department official labeled the memorandum as autocratic.
“The president fails to grasp the dynamics of an adversarial legal system and the essential role of an impartial judge in that framework,” the official remarked, requesting anonymity due to fears of retaliation.
“Such a system is crucial for unveiling weak evidence and flawed arguments,” he continued. “The president prefers a system where he wins and his opponents are punished. That’s not justice; that’s autocracy.”
Legal experts have also accused Trump of hypocrisy, pointing out that his own attorneys have violated Rule 11 of the federal rules of civil procedure, which prohibits lawyers from presenting false or frivolous claims in court.
The former senior Justice Department official noted that Trump’s claims about Joe Biden winning pivotal swing states in 2020 via fraudulent ballots “dramatically fell short of the Rule 11 standards cited in his memorandum.”
Last year, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from Sidney Powell and other Trump lawyers who were ordered to pay $150,000 in sanctions for filing a lawsuit that contested the 2020 election results in Michigan. Powell has also pleaded guilty in Georgia to state criminal charges related to her efforts to overturn Trump’s defeat there.
A senior attorney from a law firm that has taken legal action against the administration emphasized the gravity of the situation.
“He’s intimidating the very sector that protects society from Trump’s tyranny,” the attorney remarked. “Lawyers file lawsuits, and they get rulings that determine whether the actions of the administration are constitutional. This is fundamental to our system of government.
“I can’t emphasize enough how serious this is,” the lawyer, a former federal prosecutor, added. “Law firms like these serve as a check on power. If no one challenges actions in court, then nothing will be restrained.”
