The move to disqualify the judge was emblematic of the Trump administration’s broader attacks on the federal judiciary, which in recent weeks has pushed back against executive actions.
A judge on Wednesday angrily rejected the Justice Department’s efforts to remove her from considering the law firm Perkins Coie’s request to stop a Trump order that could effectively cripple the firm’s ability to represent its clients.
In a blistering decision, the judge, Beryl A. Howell, said that the attempt to kick her off the case threatened to “impugn the integrity of the federal judicial system.” It also signaled an effort to blame any losses the department might ultimately face in the case on her work as a judge rather than on the weakness of its own legal arguments, she added.
“Every litigating party deserves a fair and impartial hearing to determine both what the material facts are and how the law best applies to those facts,” wrote Judge Howell, who presides in federal court in Washington. “That fundamental promise, however, does not entitle any party — not even those with the power and prestige of the president of the United States or a federal agency — to demand adherence to their own version of the facts and preferred legal outcome.”
When Perkins Coie sued the administration on March 11, it argued that Mr. Trump’s executive order stripping its lawyers of security clearances and barring them from entering federal buildings was unconstitutional.
The order targeting Perkins Coie was only one part of a wider effort by the administration to go after white-shoe law firms that it perceives as enemies. Mr. Trump has also issued similar executive orders against the firms Paul Weiss, Covington and Burling, and Jenner and Block.
Last week, in a motion that cited several cases Judge Howell had handled, lawyers for the Justice Department accused her of being unfit to preside over the Perkins Coie case because, they claimed, she had “repeatedly demonstrated partiality against and animus towards the president.”