type: timeline_event
On March 7, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice filed appeals seeking to reinstate Trump executive orders targeting four major law firms — Jenner & Block, Perkins Coie, Susman Godfrey, and WilmerHale — after four separate federal judges had blocked the orders. The appeals came after a jarring reversal: DOJ had moved to voluntarily drop the cases on March 3, only to reverse course the following day and announce it would fight to restore the punitive orders.
The original executive orders, signed throughout 2025, imposed severe penalties on these firms including suspension of security clearances for their attorneys, restrictions on access to federal buildings, and requirements that government contractors disclose any work done with the targeted firms. The orders targeted the firms because of their connections to political adversaries of Trump: WilmerHale and Jenner & Block had hired attorneys who worked on the Mueller investigation into Russian election interference; Susman Godfrey had represented Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit against Fox News; and Perkins Coie had represented Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.
Four federal judges — each finding that the orders violated constitutional protections for free speech, due process, and the right to counsel — had blocked the orders as unconstitutional acts of government retaliation. In its appeals, DOJ argued the judges had "bent over backwards" to invalidate lawful presidential action and that the orders were justified on national security and anti-discrimination grounds.
Legal scholars and bar associations characterized the entire enterprise as an unprecedented weaponization of executive power to punish political opponents through their lawyers, striking at the independence of the legal profession and the right to representation.