By Tierney Sneed, CNN
(CNN) — A federal judge on Friday ruled that an executive order signed by President Donald Trump targeting a law firm that represented his 2016 presidential opponent was unconstitutional.
US District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that the executive order targeting Perkins Coie violated the First, Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
The firm, which represented Hillary Clinton in 2016 and was involved in voting rights litigation that Trump opposed, was one of several law firms to sue over Trump’s executive orders that took aim at the firms’ security clearances, their access to federal officials and the contractor relationships their clients have with the government.
Perkins Coie and other firms previously secured emergency rulings pausing parts of the Trump directives, but Howell’s ruling Friday night was the first to strike down an executive order targeting a law firm in its entirety and to do so on a permanent basis.
Her 100-plus page opinion quotes William Shakespeare, John Adams and the Bill of Rights.
“In a cringe-worthy twist on the theatrical phrase ‘Let’s kill all the lawyers,’” she wrote, referring to a line from Shakespeare’s “Henry VI,” the executive order “takes the approach of ‘Let’s kill the lawyers I don’t like,’ sending the clear message: lawyers must stick to the party line, or else.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
The-CNN-Wire
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