By Mike Scarcella
(Reuters) -The American Bar Association sued the Trump administration on Monday, seeking an order that would bar the White House from pursuing what the ABA called a campaign of intimidation against major law firms.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., said the administration violated the U.S. Constitution in a series of executive orders targeting law firms over their past clients and lawyers they hired.
“There has never been a more urgent time for the ABA to defend its members, our profession and the rule of law itself,” the group’s president, William Bay, said in a statement.
The ABA, with about 150,000 paying members, is the country’s largest voluntary association for lawyers.
Four law firms have separately sued the administration over President Donald Trump’s orders, which stripped their lawyers of security clearances and restricted their access to government officials and federal contracting work.
Four different judges in Washington have sided with the firms and temporarily or permanently barred Trump’s orders against them. One of the firms that sued and won a preliminary victory, Susman Godfrey, is representing the ABA in Monday’s lawsuit.
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields in a statement called the ABA’s lawsuit “clearly frivolous,” and said the ABA has no power over the president’s broad discretion to award contracts and security clearances.
“The Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on this issue,” Fields said.
Despite Trump’s court losses, nine law firms have struck deals with the president, pledging nearly $1 billion in free legal services on mutually agreed legal issues with the White House in order to stave off similar executive orders.
The ABA said in its lawsuit that Trump’s actions had made it difficult to find law firms willing to represent it in litigation adverse to the federal government, including a case it sought to join challenging the administration’s immigration policies.
The ABA said Trump had formed a “deliberate policy designed to intimidate and coerce law firms and lawyers to refrain from challenging the President or his Administration in court.”
The lawsuit escalates a clash between the organization and the Trump administration, which has cut some government funding to the group and has moved to restrict its role in vetting federal judicial nominees.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in March warned the ABA it could lose its role accrediting law schools unless it cancels a requirement related to student diversity.
A judge in March temporarily blocked the Justice Department from canceling $3.2 million in grants that the ABA has used to train lawyers to represent victims of domestic and sexual violence.
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by David Bario, Leslie Adler and Nick Zieminski)
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