CA Attorney General Rob Bonta Grandstanding in Perkins Coie Lawsuit Against Trump Admin

Is California Attorney General Rob Bonta mistaking himself for general counsel of  the ACLU?  It certainly seems that way.

The powerhouse law firm Perkins Coie is suing the Trump Administration over the President’s executive order that banned them from federal buildings because, among other reasons,  they helped birth the fallacious Steele dossier during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Perkins Coie claims Trump’s edict violates the First Amendment. Maybe. Maybe not. This is certainly a very interesting lawsuit, but what does it have to do with California?

Absolutely zilch. Nevertheless, Bonta earlier this month joined a coalition of Democrat state attorneys general in filing a brief supporting Perkins Coie’s  request for an injunction blocking Trump’s order.

This sounds like just more grandstanding by somebody in the throes of Trump derangement syndrome and a waste of Californian’s  taxpayer dollars. Bonta is charged with protecting the rights and interests of Californians. Waging a liberal holy war against the big bad Orange man is not part of his official job duties.

In his statement announcing the March 12 filing he said that, “The right to an attorney is a bedrock of our legal system and American democracy as a whole. “The Trump Administration’s political attack on Perkins Coie — based solely on the clients and ideas they represent — is unprecedented and unjustifiable. If it goes unchecked, it will have an immediate chilling effect on attorneys nationwide, instilling a fear of retaliation among those who dare to disagree with this President. I stand with my fellow attorneys general in condemning the President’s campaign of retribution. Once again, the President acts as if he were a king — ignoring the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution he swore to uphold.”

The brief says that Trump’s order, “runs roughshod over the First Amendment and the basic principles underlying our adversarial justice system” and the edict “does more than disadvantage private attorneys at a single law firm. Through official action, the President has attempted to exclude certain lawyers and certain viewpoints from reaching a court of law at all. It is a menacing message to attorneys nationwide: unless they advance positions or represent clients favorable to the current administration their livelihood may be at risk and their patriotism will be called into question.”

Lofty words but did United States District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Beryl Howell even read them? Just hours after Bonta’s brief was docketed, she released an injunction, likely written in the days preceding, that blocked Trump from enforcing his  executive order.

Howell, who was appointed by Barack Obama, ripped into the President. She wrote that, “To the extent that this executive order appears to be an instance of President Trump using taxpayer dollars [and] government resources to pursue what is a wholly personal vendetta, advancing such political payback is not something which the government has a cognizable interest.”

Bonta then issued another press release welcoming Howell’s injunction. He said that, “This ruling is a win for free speech and the rule of law. The President cannot use the power of his office to punish those who disagree with him. Today, our system of checks and balances worked. The court blocked the Trump Administration from retaliating against Perkins Coie based solely on the clients and ideas it represents, in accordance with the rights and freedoms enshrined in our Constitution to protect the American public.”

But Dean Broyles, president of the Escondido-based National Center for Public Policy, told the California Globe that Trump’s order was a legitimate exercise of his executive power and that Bonta, given his own record, is hypocritical for accusing somebody else of trampling on free speech.

“The proper role of government is to reward good behavior and punish evil,” he explained. “The Perkins Coie, LLP litigation appears to be more about money and rewarding bad behavior than it is about free speech or being able to hire an attorney of one’s choosing. I encourage everyone to read President Trump’s executive order.  It is quite eye opening.  It alleges the firm’s attorneys have been involved [in] a lot of ethically questionable, immoral, undemocratic and even illegal behavior, including engaging in racial discrimination against their own employees in the form of woke DEI employment programs. No lawyer or law firm is above the law. And, the president as the executive has the right to control with whom the federal government contracts. Bad behavior shouldn’t be rewarded with government funding. As a whole, the firm comes off as a whiny entitled teenager demanding his allowance when he has been feckless and hasn’t done his chores.”

Moreover, “It is quite rich that Attorney General Bonta opines that ‘The President cannot use the power of his office to punish those who disagree with him.’  This is precisely what Bonta, Newsom and others have done in recent months by targeting and retaliating against local public school districts, including Temecula and Chino Hills. How? By threatening to sue districts, fine districts, withhold state funding and actually suing school districts if they don’t precisely conform to Sacramento radical woke transgender sexual ideology, including the foolish idea of keeping a child’s struggle with gender dysphoria at school a secret from parents. Is this not California compelling speech and chilling dissent? California’s position on transgenderism puts it squarely at odds with at least five federal executive orders and puts federal funding of our public schools in jeopardy. In the end, the states’ amicus brief is little more than mostly woke blue states circling [their] Marxist wagons to make sure their rich lawyer friends and allies can keep sucking on the big federal government’s financial teet.”

Bonta’s media office did not respond to an inquiry asking how the filing is related to California.

But University of California at San Diego political science  professor Thad Kousser defended Bonta’s move in an email to the California Globe. He said that, “Because this case concerns the free and fair operation of the judicial system, it would seem to be a reasonable matter of concern for state attorneys general[s].  Though their individual states are not parties to the suit, Bonta and his colleagues are making the argument that preserving free speech and the rule of law are vital to the operation of the legal system in which they work.”