For the second time in as many weeks, President Trump on Thursday revoked the security clearances for a high-powered Washington law firm with deep ties to the Democratic Party.
Mr. Trump signed an executive order stripping security clearances for attorneys at Perkins Coie, where one of its top lawyers went to the FBI with false allegations tying Mr. Trump to Russia in 2016.
Removing their security clearances makes it nearly impossible for attorneys with the firm to do federal government work. It’s unclear how much, if any, work the law firm does for the U.S. government.
“This is an absolute honor to sign, what they’ve done is just terrible,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s weaponization against a political opponent.”
The order states that the security clearances were revoked because the firm is engaging in illegal diversity, equity and inclusion practices. Perkins Coie was sued by a conservative group in 2023 because their diversity fellowships were only open to underrepresented groups. The lawsuit ended after the firm made changes to the criteria for acceptance into the fellowship.
Perkins Coie at one time was the counsel of record for the Democratic National Committee, represents nearly every Democratic member of Congress and has served as legal counsel for the presidential campaigns of John Kerry, Barack Obama, Clinton and Joe Biden.
After the 2020 presidential election, Perkins Coie responded to scores of lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign seeking to overturn Mr. Biden’s election win.
Much of that work was because former Marc Elias, a prominent elections lawyer who served as general counsel for Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign was at the firm. After Mr. Elias left in 2021, the firm dialed back much of its consulting work for Democrats but still did legal work for the DNC.
Most notably, the firm is best known for the role one of its lawyers, Michael Sussmann, played in spreading a false theory tying the Trump Organization to Russia’s Alfa Bank.
Mr. Sussman, who represented the Clinton campaign, faced criminal charges of lying to the FBI when, at a September 2016 meeting, he told a bureau official that he was not representing a client while encouraging the bureau to probe what turned out to be a false story about Mr. Trump’s link to Alfa Bank.
Prosecutors said the meeting was part of a Clinton campaign scheme to pitch the story to news media outlets that the Trump campaign was under investigation by the FBI for ties to Russia, thus sabotaging his campaign.
A federal jury in Washington acquitted Mr. Sussman in May 2022. Mr. Sussmann resigned from the firm in September 2021 shortly after the criminal charges were filed.
Last month, Mr. Trump revoked security clearances for attorneys at Covington & Burling, which assisted special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into the president. Mr. Smith said he received $140,000 in free legal advice from the firm to help him with his probes into Mr. Trump and his allies.
