(Headline USA) President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to suspend the security clearances of attorneys at Perkins Coie — a prominent law firm connected to Democratic-funded opposition during the 2016 presidential election cycle.
This move by the Trump administration is the latest in a series of retaliatory actions against Justice Department prosecutors, spooks, and attorneys that participated in the multi-year investigation into Trump for allegedly colluding with Russia to get elected in 2016. Special Counsel John Durham later found that the DOJ never had enough evidence to launch a full investigation in the first place.
“This is an absolute honor to sign. What they’ve done is just terrible. It’s weaponization — you could say weaponization against a political opponent, and it should never be allowed to happen again,” Trump declared after he received the executive order at the Oval Office.
The executive order instructs the attorney general, the director of national intelligence, and other relevant agency chiefs to “take steps consistent with applicable law to suspend any active security clearances held by individuals at Perkins Coie, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest.”
On top of that, it directs agency chiefs to limit access to government buildings by attorneys at Perkins Coie “when such access would threaten the national security of or otherwise be inconsistent with the interests of the United States.” The order also calls for the relevant agency chiefs to identify and cancel the building contracts they have with Perkins Coie.
Previous research by Headline USA found that Perkins Coie was running an FBI workspace in their office in Washington, D.C. since 2012.
A spokesperson for Perkins Coie released a statement criticizing the executive order: “We have reviewed the Executive Order. It is patently unlawful, and we intend to challenge it.”
The executive order stems from Perkins Coie’ hiring of Fusion GPS, a research and intelligence firm, to carry out opposition research on then-candidate Trump’s potential connections to Russia.
Fusion GPS hired British spy Christopher Steele to craft several reports — better known as the dossier — that would later be circulated among journalists and government officials in Washington throughout the campaign. The dossier argued that Russia was involved in a multi-year effort to elect Donald Trump and created a major scandal — Russiagate — throughout his presidency that prevented any normalization of relations between Russia and the United States.
Further, the Perkins Coie executive order also asserted that the law firm was conducting illegal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
