The Justice Department is backing out from a court battle with four major law firms that won rulings blocking President Donald Trump’s executive orders against them.
DOJ on Monday filed a motion to withdraw its appeals of the rulings. The move ends the litigation over the orders, in which Trump targeted firms for their ties to lawyers he sees as enemies and work on causes he views as adverse to his interests. Four federal judges struck down the orders as unconstitutional in separate rulings last year.
“The government’s decision to dismiss its appeal is clearly the right one,” a spokesperson for WilmerHale said via email. Trump hit the firm with an executive order last year over its connections to Robert Mueller, the former special counsel who led an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The development marks a big win for WilmerHale and the three other firms challenging orders against them: Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and Susman Godfrey. The district court judges who blocked the orders described them as unprecedented efforts to retaliate against the firms.
Abhishek Kambli, the deputy associate attorney general overseeing the appeals, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Trump’s orders revoked lawyers’ security clearances and barred them from entering federal buildings. The president, who said he was fighting back against firms who “weaponize” the justice system, also threatened to cancel government contracts held by the firms’ clients, and ordered investigations of law firm diversity practices.
Nine other Big Law firms pledged a combined $940 million in free legal services to the White House in deals designed to avoid similar orders and resolve federal probes into recruiting programs at some of the firms.
“This chapter has once again confirmed what has been true of Jenner for more than a century: we will always zealously advocate for our clients and put them first, without compromise,” said a spokesperson for Jenner & Block, which Trump targeted because of its affiliation to Andrew Weissmann, who was part of Mueller’s Russia investigation team. “Our partnership is proud to have stood firm on behalf of its clients, and we look forward to continuing to serve them—guided by these bedrock values—for many decades to come.”
The cases had been scheduled for briefing over the next two months, with oral arguments ordered to take place in the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit the same day.
The case is: Jenner & Block v. DOJ, D.C. Cir., 25-5265, 3/2/26
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