President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that would rescind security clearances and access to certain federal resources for Perkins Coie. It’s the law firm that hired the company responsible for crafting the so-called ‘Steele dossier’ containing salacious material about Trump’s alleged connections to Russia, which the president has denied.
‘This is an absolute honor to sign,’ Trump told reporters Thursday. ‘What they’ve done, it’s just terrible. It’s weaponization. You could say weaponization against a political opponent, and it should never be allowed to happen again.’
Specifically, the executive order suspends security clearances for Perkins Coie employees until a further review evaluating its access to sensitive information is complete to determine if it aligns with the national interest.
Additionally, the order cuts off access to sensitive information facilities for Perkins Coie employees and will limit the company’s access to government employees. The order also the federal government from hiring Perkins Coie employees without specific authorization.
Likewise, the federal government is prohibited from hiring contractors that use the law firm.
The international law firm represented Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee in the 2016 election and former President Joe Biden after Trump challenged Biden’s win in the 2020 election.
Perkins Coie first came under scrutiny after Marc Elias, the former chair of the firm’s political law practice, hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research into presidential candidate Trump in April 2016 on behalf of Trump’s opponent, Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee.
Fusion GPS then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who composed the so-called ‘Steele dossier.’ The document included scandalous and mostly unverified allegations, including details that Trump engaged in sex acts with Russian prostitutes.
Trump repeatedly denied allegations included in the dossier and filed a lawsuit against Orbis Business Intelligence, a company Steele co-founded. Trump’s legal team claimed he ‘suffered personal and reputational damage and distress’ as a result of the dossier, but a judge in London pitched the lawsuit in February 2024.
The dossier first became public in 2017 when BuzzFeed News published it. The Justice Department’s inspector general lambasted the agency and the FBI in 2019 for using the document to make a case in securing surveillance applications against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page as part of the agency’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Still, the inspector general determined that no political bias motivated the surveillance of Page or the launching of Russia investigations.
Requests for comment by Perkins Coie were not immediately answered.
