For the third time in four weeks, President Trump has pulled the security clearances for a high-powered law firm and restricted their employees from entering government buildings and receiving federal contracts.
Mr. Trump late Friday revoked the security clearances at the New York-based Paul, Weiss, Wharton & Garrison saying the move was in “the national interest.”
The order directs that the security clearances of Paul Weiss attorneys be pulled “pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest,” terminate any contract for which the law firm was hired to perform “‘any service” and limit government employees from engaging with the firm’s workers in an official capacity.
It also orders agency officials to refrain from hiring Paul Weiss attorneys “absent a waiver from the head of the agency.”
“My administration has already taken action to address some of the significant risks and egregious conduct associated with law firms and I have determined that similar action is necessary to end Government sponsorship of harmful activity by an additional law firm: Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP,” the order states.
The order specifically names one of the firm’s former lawyers, Mark Pomerantz, who Mr. Trump blasts as “unethical.”
Mr. Pomerantz tried to build a criminal case against Mr. Trump several years ago when he was an attorney in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. While serving as a prosecutor, he worked on the investigation into whether Mr. Trump paid hush money to two women in order to keep potentially damaging stories out of the media ahead of the 2016 election.
A Manhattan jury found Mr. Trump guilty of the charges, but he has denied all wrongdoing.
In a speech Friday at the Justice Department, Mr. Trump again called out Mr. Pomerantz, saying he was among the prosecutors and private lawyers who pursued cases against him. He called those attorneys “really bad people” and vowed to end the “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
The order says Mr. Pomerantz “left Paul Weiss to join the Manhattan District Attorney’s office solely to manufacture a prosecution against me and who, according to his co-workers, unethically led witnesses in ways designed to implicate me.”
“After being unable to convince even Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that a fraud case was feasible, Pomerantz engaged in a media campaign to gin up support for this unwarranted prosecution,” the order stated.
Mr. Pomerantz could not be immediately reached for comment.
A spokeswoman for Paul Weiss noted that Mr. Pomerantz left the firm in 2012 to join the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
“Mr. Pomerantz has not been affiliated with the firm for years,” she said in a statement.
The Friday order is the third time Mr. Trump has gone after law firms with ties to Democrats or the investigations against him.
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.
Earlier this month, Mr. Trump signed an executive order striping employees at Perkins Coie, a law firm that did work for Democrats during the 2016 campaign, of security clearances. One of the lawyers at the firm went to the FBI with false information about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.
On Wednesday U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell temporarily blocked parts of Mr. Trump’s order which prevented Perkins Coie from entering the federal buildings and forced contractors to reveal if they have any business with the firm.
