Judge denies Trump administration’s demand to recuse from Perkins Coie case

A federal judge on Wednesday refused the Trump administration’s demand to step aside from overseeing Perkins Coie’s lawsuit challenging the president’s targeting of the major law firm. 

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said there is a “clear absence of any legitimate basis” for her recusal from the case, instead suggesting that the administration was placing the blame on her for its loss in her court instead of "fallacies” in its legal arguments.  

“Though this adage is commonplace, and the tactic overused, it is called to mind by defendants’ pending motion to disqualify this Court: ‘When you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger,’” Howell, an appointee of former President Obama, wrote in a 21-page ruling.

The Justice Department asked Howell to recuse last week, suggesting she repeatedly demonstrated “partiality” against and “animus” toward Trump. The motion took aim at her temporary restraining order barring the government from enforcing parts of Trump’s executive order against Perkins Coie and decisions made in other major cases she previously oversaw. 

Howell wrote in her decision Wednesday that she “welcomed” the Trump administration’s opportunity “to set the record straight, because facts matter.”  

“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,” the judge said. “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.” 

Howell was randomly assigned to oversee PerkinsCoie’s lawsuit challenging Trump’s executive order that restricted the security clearances and access to federal facilities of the firm’s employees. The president has long clashed with the firm over its work advising Hillary Clinton during her 2016 presidential campaign and connections to the discredited Steele dossier containing unflattering allegations about Trump and his ties to Russia. 

Earlier this month, Howell temporarily froze parts of the executive order after Perkins Coie claimed its past work for Democrats made it a subject of retaliation by the administration. At the law firm’s request, the temporary restraining order addressed only three of the order’s six sections – an effort to tackle the “most immediate” harm to the firm first.  

Lawyers for Perkins Coie had argued that the executive order was “life-threatening” to the law firm, while DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle, who argued for the government, called the firm’s representations “what ifs, boogeymans and ghosts.”

Howell ripped the Justice Department in her ruling declining to recuse, suggesting its initial motion at times read more like a “talking point from a member of Congress rather than a legal brief from the United States Department of Justice.” 

The request for Howell’s removal marked the second time DOJ has called for a judge’s recusal from a pending lawsuit against the administration. Last week, the administration called for the removal of the judge overseeing a high-profile deportation flight case.  

It comes as Trump himself has stepped up his rhetoric against judges who rule against him. Republican members of Congress have simultaneously launched bids to impeach certain judges who have issued rulings adverse to the administration. 

Zach Schonfeld contributed.