Trump Has Already Targeted Law Firms He Dislikes. He Is Just Getting Started.

President Donald Trump is doubling down on his threats against the American legal system, directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against lawyers and law firms that go against him.

Trump’s administration has taken an increasingly adversarial stance toward the legal system, including both judges who have ruled against his policies and lawyers and firms that he has viewed as wronging him.

The memo circulated late Friday, entitled “Preventing Abuses of the Legal System and the Federal Court”, marks an escalation of Trump’s crackdown on law firms he believes have crossed him, now threatening the full power of the Department of Justice to punish them.

“Lawyers and law firms that engage in actions that violate the laws of the United States or rules governing attorney conduct must be efficiently and effectively held accountable,” the memo reads.

In it, Trump directs Bondi to seek sanctions against lawyers and law firms that “engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States.” He also pushes Bondi and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to “prioritize enforcement” of proper attorney conduct.

Any unethical or unprofessional conduct will result in disciplinary action, the memo warns, which could include revoking security clearances and federal contracts — a lever he has already pulled repeatedly to target several firms with clients that have challenged Trump.

This enforcement will also be retroactive, as the memo instructs Bondi to look back at the conduct of lawyers or law firms over the last eight years for misconduct.

Trump has already attacked federal judges who have ruled against him on key cases like deportations of migrants. He called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg — the chief judge of the federal district court of Washington, D.C. — after he issued a halt on deportations of immigrants to El Salvador.

Friday’s memorandum comes as the nation’s law firms are already running scared over Trump’s promised retribution. Several lawyers that spoke to POLITICO shared their fear after the executive orders targeting specific law firms in a retaliatory spree connected to his political rivals.

Trump first retaliated against Washington law firm Covington & Burling in February by stripping the security clearances of lawyers and other personnel who gave legal services to Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who brought criminal charges against Trump. Trump has repeatedly referenced the “weaponization” of the legal system against him, in part due to Smith’s prosecution.

He then suspended security clearances for the Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie, which regularly represents Democratic groups including the Democratic National Committee.

But Trump faced pushback in court over his actions against Perkins Coie, after District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that major parts of Trump’s order were likely unconstitutional and that they appeared motivated by “retaliatory animus.” The Justice Department has since sought to have Howell booted from the case.

More recently Trump suspended security clearances of lawyers at New York firm Paul, Weiss — coming down on the firm’s association with Mark Pomerantz, who investigated Trump at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office but hadn’t been employed by the firm in years.

After targeting security clearances, limiting the firm’s access to government buildings and preventing them from getting federal contracts, Trump announced a peace deal with the firm Thursday. He revoked his order punishing the firm after they promised to abandon their diversity policies, provide free legal representation to clients with a “full spectrum of political viewpoints” and offer free legal services to some of the president’s favored initiatives.

But Trump’s new memo signals this is only the beginning.

He lists examples of “grossly unethical misconduct” and references Marc Elias of the Elias Law Group, one of the most prominent Democratic attorneys in the nation. Elias was also a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign while an attorney at Perkins Coie and was central to the commissioning of the now-infamous Steele dossier.

Earlier this week, Elias penned an op-ed saying that while he was concerned about retribution from Trump, he wouldn’t cave to pressure from the president.

“Now that Trump has proven to be a ruthless autocrat, too many have grown timid and silent,” Elias wrote on his website Democracy Docket. “That is simply not who I am. It is not what I believe, and it is not what I will do.”

Trump in his memorandum also lambasts the “powerful Big Law pro bono practices,” which he says teach asylum-seekers to lie on their asylum claims.

“Law firms and individual attorneys have a great power, and obligation, to serve the rule of law, justice, and order,” the memo states. “The Attorney General, alongside the Counsel to the President, shall report to the President periodically on improvements by firms to capture this hopeful vision.”