As lower and district court judges continue to one-up each other with absurd usurpations of clearly stated executive authority, another contender has entered the ring.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled on Friday night that the President of the United States does not have the power to pull government security clearances from Perkins Coie, a private law firm. Yeah, that would be the same Perkins Coie that worked with Democrats to gin up the Russian collusion hoax.
In her order, Howell decided that quoting Shakespeare was appropriate. I guess our judiciary is full of theater kids.
“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,’” Howell wrote in the 102-page order on Friday.
Howell alleges that the Trump administration violated the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, with her basic argument being that the executive order in question amounted to illegal coercion. In arguably politicized fashion, she went on to express animosity toward the law firms that cut deals with the administration to keep their clearances.
Howell drips with disdain for the firms who capitulated to the White House and says of those who resisted “will be the models lauded when this period of American history is written.” https://t.co/oj4sysrkNd pic.twitter.com/1AOEkdvH8C
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 2, 2025
All of this will undoubtedly and justifiably seem ridiculous to onlookers, regardless of what legal arguments may or may not actually exist. Control over security clearances is a vested power in the executive branch, and if the president decides he doesn’t want a law firm that literally targeted him on behalf of Hillary Clinton to have access to classified materials within his administration, one would think he should be able to do so.
As for Howell, who was appointed by Barack Obama, her background includes a litany of actions that could be described as targeting President Donald Trump. She was the supervising judge over the Robert Mueller probe, which she allowed to run rampant for years on end despite a complete lack of predicate or produced evidence. She was also the judge who forced one of Trump’s lawyers to testify despite attorney-client privilege. Further, Howell handed down a ruling that gave House Democrats access to a lot of materials from Mueller’s “Russian collusion” investigation. Oh yeah, and did I mention she was involved in the January 6th prosecutions as well?
ALSO SEE: Elise Stefanik Files Ethics Complaint Against Judge Who Oversaw Grand Jury Proceedings Against Trump
There are several more examples, and people can make of them what they will, but I don’t think her leanings are in doubt. Howell is a radical left-winger, and she’s never been shy about wearing that on her sleeve. That includes openly demeaning Trump in the courtroom by calling him a “sore loser.” Is it really surprising that a judge who helped propagate the Russian collusion hoax and played into it would decide the law firm most behind it isn’t subject to the authority of the presidency on executive matters?
All of this leads to the Supreme Court, and if Chief Justice John Roberts would like to preserve some semblance of Article III, I’d suggest he act sooner rather than later. If these lower court judges continue their rampage, the administration is going to start ignoring their orders, and once that happens, the cat can never be put back in the bag.
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