Another law firm targeted by Trump, Jenner and Block, suing to block executive order
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(WASHINGTON) — The law firm Jenner and Block filed suit against the Trump Administration Friday seeking to block an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week that targeted its attorneys’ security clearances and essentially shuttered any interactions with the federal government.
“The Order threatens not only Jenner, but also its clients and the legal system itself,” the firm said Friday in its lawsuit. “Our Constitution, top to bottom, forbids attempts by the government to punish citizens and lawyers based on the clients they represent, the positions they advocate, the opinions they voice, and the people with whom they associate.”
Jenner and Block is now the second of five firms targeted by Trump to bring a legal challenge against what it describes as a blatantly “unconstitutional” executive order, following a successful effort by the law firm Perkins Coie to have a federal judge temporarily block a similar order that targeted it over its representation of then-candidate Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in D.C. Friday, accuses the Trump Administration of engaging in a sweeping campaign to intimidate major law firms that either represented or once counted among its ranks individuals who he has labeled his political enemies.
“These orders send a clear message to the legal profession: Cease certain representations adverse to the government and renounce the Administration’s critics — or suffer the consequences,” the suit said. “The orders also attempt to pressure businesses and individuals to question or even abandon their associations with their chosen counsel, and to chill bringing legal challenges at all.”
The filing comes amid a crisis that has gripped other “Big Law” firms in Washington, as top attorneys debate whether to fight back, cut a deal or stay quiet wondering whether they will be singled out next.
On Thursday, Trump signed another executive order targeting WilmerHale — citing its hiring of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and two of his top deputies, after they had investigated the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
In a statement reacting to the order, a spokesperson for WilmerHale said they planned to pursue “all appropriate remedies to this unlawful order.”
(WASHINGTON) — Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin explained why she voted against confirming Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.
Hegseth, a former Fox News host, was sworn into the role Saturday following a hair-thin vote in the Senate.
Slotkin told “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz she had not been confident Hegseth would be more loyal to the Constitution than he would be to President Donald Trump.
“He couldn’t unambiguously say that he will push back if the president asked him to do something that wasn’t constitutional, and that, to me, is why I couldn’t confirm him,” Slotkin said. “There’s a lot of other things in his background I don’t like, but I look at what is the strategic and irreversible threats to our democracy, and that’s using the uniform military in ways that violate the Constitution.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)
(WASHINGTON) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to embark on his first diplomatic mission abroad since being confirmed to his post, visiting five countries in Central and South America over the first week of February.
During the trip, Rubio is expected to reinforce the Trump administration’s immigration priorities with leaders in the region, according to a senior official, who said the secretary is also planning to address Beijing’s influence during several of the stops.
The State Department is also billing Rubio’s trip as historic — saying his six-day journey to Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic marks the first time a U.S. secretary of state has opted to make his or her first official visit to Latin America in over 100 years.
“This is where we live”
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Rubio said the trip is part of a realignment of American diplomatic priorities.
“For many reasons, U.S. foreign policy has long focused on other regions while overlooking our own. As a result, we’ve let problems fester, missed opportunities and neglected partners,” he said. “That ends now.”
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said the region’s proximity to the United States was an important factor in selecting it for Rubio’s first trip.
“The fact of the matter is, this is where we live. This is who we are,” she said. “This is about not just wanting to have new partnerships — but that’s always good — but the nature of what it means to have an extended relationship with the people closest to you.”
Those relationships are vital for fulfilling the Trump administration’s border security and deportation plans, Rubio noted.
“Diplomacy’s role in this effort is central. We need to work with countries of origin to halt and deter further migrant flows, and to accept the return of their citizens present in the U.S. illegally,” he said.
Cooperation and coercion
However, the countries on his itinerary have largely been very cooperative with the administration so far, as other countries in the region Rubio will skip over remain hesitant to comply.
Guatemala, for instance, has accepted hundreds of migrants brought to the country on military planes since Trump took office, and the country’s leadership has signaled it is open to accepting deportees of other nationalities.
Meanwhile, Mexico, which is traditionally the U.S.’ most important partner in handling illegal immigration, has been much more tentative.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum originally said the country wouldn’t accept migrants from other countries, but she quietly reversed course in late January when she revealed Mexico had accepted over 4,000 deportees and that while “the large majority” was Mexican, others were not.
Mexico has also so far refused requests from the U.S. to allow military flights carrying deportees to land in the country, according to officials from both countries.
Honduras has posed another challenge to the administration’s agenda. According to data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the end of 2024, Hondurans made up the largest share of the population in the deportation pipeline. But ahead of Trump’s inauguration, the president of Honduras threatened to expel members of the U.S. military stationed in the country in response to mass deportations of Honduran nationals.
However, Honduran authorities have signaled the country’s position may be softening. The country’s foreign minister wrote on X that the government is in the process of launching a program to support returning migrants called “Brother, Come Home.”
The Trump administration has also had some early success in overtly pressuring countries to acquiesce. His threatened trade war against Colombia prompted its government to allow military deportation flights to land on its territory.
“It sends a message that this administration, President Trump, Secretary Rubio — they mean what they say,” said Mauricio Claver-Carone, special envoy for Latin America.
Claver-Carone also suggested the Trump administration would use gentler diplomatic tactics as well, saying that during Rubio’s trip, he will attempt to lay the groundwork for a program to repatriate migrants travelling through Central America with the government of Costa Rica.
He also addressed Richard Grenell’s visit to Venezuela to meet with strongman Nicolas Maduro on Friday.
“President Trump expects Nicolas Maduro to take back all of the Venezuelan criminals and gang members that have been exported to United States and to do so unequivocally and without condition,” he said, adding that Grenell, the envoy for special missions, will also urge Maduro to release American hostages held in the country.
A “direct threat” from China
Beyond immigration, Claver-Carone said Beijing’s growing influence in Central America will also be top of mind for Rubio through much of the trip, but it is expected to take center stage during the secretary’s first stop in Panama.
Trump has lodged a litany of complaints related to Panama’s operation of the canal that cuts through the country — claiming that American vessels are overcharged, lamenting that the U.S. ceded control of the vital waterway in the first place and promising “we’re taking it back” during his inaugural address.
Rubio has taken a more measured approach in discussing the Panama Canal while also underscoring that what he says are Trump’s legitimate concerns about the waterway — especially when it comes to companies controlled by Beijing located on each end of it.
“If the government in China in a conflict tells them to shut down the Panama Canal, they will have to,” Rubio said in an interview on Thursday. “That is a direct threat.”
Rubio continued to say it is a dynamic that cannot be allowed to continue.
“It is not in the national interest of the United States to have a canal we paid for and we built used as a leverage and a weapon against us. That can’t happen,” he said.
But ahead of Rubio’s visit, Panama President Jose Raul Mulino said handing back control of the canal isn’t a thought he can entertain.
“It’s impossible,” Mulino said during a press conference on Thursday. “I cannot negotiate, and much less open, a process of negotiation over the canal. That’s sealed. The canal belongs to Panama.”
(WASHINGTON) — Federal workers across the government on Friday received emails from top officials at their agencies informing them that the resignation offers they received earlier this week are “valid, lawful, and will be honored.”
The White House’s Office of Personnel Management had told government workers in an email Tuesday that if they quit by Feb. 6, they would still get paid through Sept. 30.
Employment lawyers questioned whether such an offer was lawful because Congress, not the White House, is responsible for authorizing workers’ paychecks. Many agencies are expected to run out of money this spring, with the federal government only funded through March, raising questions about how the Trump administration can promise those who take the buyouts would still get paid if the executive branch doesn’t control spending.
Many federal workers also wondered whether the memo, titled “A Fork in the Road,” was a phishing scam, prompting OPM to release a new memo assuring workers they are “most welcome [to] stay at home and relax or to travel to your dream destination. Whatever you would like.”
On Friday morning, senior officials at the various agencies sent memos to staffers assuring them the offers were indeed real.
“On behalf of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), I am informing you that the offer is valid, lawful, and will be honored by USDA,” said one such memo signed by Kailee Tkacz Buller, chief of staff at the Department of Agriculture.
“If you accept the deferred resignation offer, you will receive pay and benefits through September 30, 2025, and will not be subject to a reduction-in-force or other premature separation,” she wrote.
However, Max Alonzo, the national secretary-treasurer for the National Federation of Federal Employees, a labor union that represents 110,000 federal workers, said his union is advising federal workers not to respond to the email.
In part, he said, the union is worried about the lack of clarity and specifics in the offer email. He pointed to the lack of a contract and the fact that Congress has not allocated funds for large-scale federal buyouts, and he worried people might offer to resign but not actually be paid in the end or may have their benefits stripped.
“Absolutely do not resign. There is nothing that says that the day that you resign, that they can’t just let you go,” he said. “They don’t have to pay you — there’s nothing that says they have to pay you till Sept. 30. This is nothing that has been done before. This is not in our regulations. There’s no regs about it. We’re not even sure if it’s actually legal. So, yeah, absolutely do not resign.”
The buyout offers come as President Donald Trump has pushed for federal employees to return to working in person, signing an executive order on his first day in office calling for an end to teleworking.
