Firm Targeted by Trump Over Clinton Campaign Work Hires Top Litigators

Perkins Coie, the law firm that President Trump targeted for punishment with an executive order last week for its role representing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, has hired an elite Washington firm, Williams & Connolly, to fight the order, according to four people briefed on the matter.

The decision to hire Williams & Connolly — which is considered among the most aggressive and skilled firms in fighting the federal government — marked a significant escalation in the fight between Perkins Coie and Mr. Trump.

There were concerns in the legal community that no firm would step forward to represent Perkins Coie. But now Mr. Trump’s Justice Department will be forced to face off against some of the top litigators in the country to defend what legal experts consider one of his most direct attacks on his perceived enemies, and the American legal system.

The executive order Mr. Trump signed on Thursday essentially crippled Perkins Coie’s ability to represent clients dealing with the federal government by stripping it of access to government buildings and officials. The president said he was taking the action, in part, because of Perkins Coie’s role in hiring another firm that helped create a dossier on Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.

A spokesman for Perkins Coie, which is based in Seattle but has a large Washington office, declined to comment. Emails sent to Williams & Connolly were not answered.

Legal experts and top Washington lawyers said the order targeting Perkins Coie was among Mr. Trump’s most troubling maneuvers since returning to office. Not only did it appear designed to destroy the firm, they said, it seemed intended to have a chilling effect on the entire legal profession, signaling that firms could face major consequences for simply representing an adversary of Mr. Trump.

The lawyer who served as Perkins Coie’s point person on the Russia dossier, Marc Elias, ran the firm’s political law group and served as the top lawyer for the Clinton campaign. He left the firm in 2021 to start his own firm specializing in election and voting rights law, taking with him dozens of Perkins Coie lawyers and becoming even more vocal in his criticisms of Mr. Trump.

While Perkins Coie maintained its political law practice, that is dwarfed by its work representing major corporations that generally seek to avoid political controversies of the sort generated by the dossier and Mr. Trump’s attacks.

In the hours after Mr. Trump signed the order, top Perkins Coie lawyers hurriedly strategized about how to respond, according to three of the people. Several other firms declined to represent Perkins Coie, fearing that they, too, could become targets of Mr. Trump’s ire, according to three of those briefed on the matter. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be publicly identified speaking about confidential discussions.

Williams & Connolly has a mixed political pedigree. One of its top partners, David E. Kendall, is the longtime lawyer for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Mr. Kendall handled the congressional and Justice Department investigations into her use of a personal email account when she was secretary of state.

Another of the firm’s most prominent partners, Emmet Flood, was one of Mr. Trump’s top White House lawyers during his first term. Mr. Flood went on to represent Vice President Mike Pence in connection with the Justice Department investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election; that case eventually resulted in Mr. Trump’s being indicted.