Donald Trump on Tuesday signed another executive order apparently aimed at exacting retribution against a law firm for its links to one of the president’s many past legal troubles.
A few weeks after targeting another firm which had re-hired a lawyer who had worked in the Manhattan district attorney’s office during its investigation into Trump, the president singled out Jenner & Block. A primary reason: it once employed Andrew Weissmann, a current MSNBC legal analyst and former deputy to Robert Mueller, the special counsel who led an investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
Weissmann, who left Jenner & Block in 2021, is a professor at NYU Law School. He joined MSNBC in 2019 and in 2023, when Trump was first indicted in New York, he began co-hosting the network’s podcast, Prosecuting Donald Trump.
Weissmann is a “bad guy,” Trump griped at the White House Tuesday. The executive order he signed stated that Jenner & Block’s hiring of Weissmann was “entirely unjustified.” The firm “has abandoned the profession’s highest ideals,” it added.
Many big firms “take actions that threaten public safety and national security, limit constitutional freedoms, degrade the quality of American elections, or undermine bedrock American principles,” the order stated.
It went on to criticize firms for doing pro bono work.
Somewhat ironically, Trump last week proudly announced that he was able to extract $40 million worth of pro bono work from another law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He said in his original executive order against the firm that he had targeted it for the hiring of Mark Pomerantz, who worked on the business fraud prosecution of Trump that resulted in his conviction on 34 felony counts.
Trump later retracted his original order after the law firm caved to his demands.
Yet another firm Trump has gone after in recent weeks, Perkins Coie, has benefitted from a federal judge temporarily blocking Trump’s order.
A spokesperson for Jenner & Block noted that ruling in a statement to The New York Times, adding, “We remain focused on serving and safeguarding our clients’ interests with the dedication, integrity and expertise that has defined our firm for more than 100 years and will pursue all appropriate remedies.”
