President Donald Trump signed an executive order on March 6 to suspend the security clearances for employees at a law firm that was involved in the controversial Steele Dossier.
The order was among several that Trump signed from the Oval Office on Thursday, affecting employees at Perkins Coie. In 2016, the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) paid more than $1 million to the law firm, which used the money to hire opposition research company Fusion GPS.
That company then hired Christopher Steele, a retired British counterintelligence specialist, to compile research into allegations that Trump’s 2016 campaign had conspired with the Russian government to win the presidential election.
The White House accused Perkins Coie of engaging in “lawfare and the weaponization of government” as well as “unlawful DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] practices.” The order suspends the firm’s security clearances and access to certain federal resources, while also launching a “holistic review of unlawful DEI practices at some of the nation’s largest law firms.”
While signing the order, Trump described the firm’s actions as “just terrible.”
“It’s weaponization ... against a political opponent, and it should never be allowed to happen again,” he said, adding that the DEI review would target more than 15 different law firms.
The Epoch Times contacted Perkins Coie for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
While some of the dossier’s more general findings—including that Russia was working to get Trump elected and sought to influence some of his associates—were later corroborated by U.S. intelligence agencies and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the report has been largely discredited, and no one in the president’s orbit was ever formally accused of conspiring with Russia.
In 2022, the Federal Election Commission fined the DNC $105,000 and the Clinton campaign $8,000 for not properly disclosing the money they paid Perkins Coie for hiring Fusion GPS. All political candidates and groups must publicly disclose their spending to that agency, including providing explanations for any expenditures that exceed $200.
Steele’s dossier was published by BuzzFeed News in early 2017, without the former spy’s permission, he has claimed. BuzzFeed’s decision to publish the dossier without independently verifying many of its salacious allegations was met with scrutiny by many journalists, and one of the people mentioned in it, Aleksej Gubarev, sued the outlet for defamation.
However, a federal judge sided with BuzzFeed, ruling that the document was protected by fair reporting privilege since it was part of an official proceeding.
