During the continuation of an ongoing campaign against Big Law, President Donald Trump signed a decree on Thursday aimed at Wilmerhale, a law firm linked to his political opponents who conducted previous investigations on his administration.
The order suspends security authorizations for Wilmerhale employees, limits their access to federal buildings and revokes the government contracts of the company, for what Trump described in his order as engaging “partisan representations to achieve political ends” and “efforts to discriminate the basis of the race”.
Wilmerhale has a team of more than 1,100 lawyers in 12 offices in the United States and Europe. In 2023, it was classified as the 45th largest law firm in the country which generated nearly $ 1.5 billion in revenues, according to the American lawyer.
An information sheet on the White House on Order accused Wilmerhale of having “rewarded” the former director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, and two colleagues with positions of the company for what he called “a” investigation “against the president and others”.
Muller, former officer of the Marine Corps in Vietnam and director of the FBI following terrorist attacks on September 11, had led a special investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Trump elections. The investigation finally found insufficient proofs of a link. Muller was a partner of Wilmerhale before the investigation and joined him afterwards. It is not listed on the company’s website.
The decree follows similar actions against legal powers such as Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling. Trump had previously canceled a prescription targeting Paul Weiss after the firm agreed to allocate $ 40 million in pro Bono legal work on the priorities of his administration.
A Trump memo issued on March 22 entitled “Prevention of abuses of the legal system and the Federal Court” also authorized the Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Secretary of Internal Security Kristi Noem to sanction law firms which intend to prosecution that they deem “frivolous” or “annoyation”.
Friday afternoon, lawyers representing Wilmerhale filed a request for a temporary ban order to stop executive actions at the Court of the District of Columbia. The court has not yet approved the request, but judge John Bates of the same district approved a prohibition of similar executive actions against Jenner & Block. Bates called part of the president’s decree against Jenner & Block “disturbing”.
A spokesperson for Wilmerhale told Business Insider that the company had a “long-standing tradition to represent a wide range of customers, including in terms of administration of both parties” and that they are looking forward to continuing all the appeals appropriate to this illegal order “.
Wilmerhale is one of the main law firms representing clients in prosecution that questions the main administration policies of Trump. The cabinet had also filed a memory of Amicus in January 2024 which called Trump’s attempt to gain immunity in connection with his criminal proceedings for an alleged interference of the “incompatible elections with our constitution”.
Chris Mattei, lawyer for the law firm based in Connecticut, Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, and a former federal prosecutor, said the series of orders was a constitutional threat.
“If lawyers abandon our duty to protect the rights of those targeted by the government, our democracy will fall,” Mattei told Bi in an email.
The White House did not respond to the request for BI comments.
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March 28, 2025 – This story has been updated to include Wilmerhale’s response to order.
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