Executive Order 14250 explained · Executive Order · No disposition noted
Addressing Risks From WilmerHale
Signed: 2025-03-27 Published: 2025-04-03 Federal Register document: 2025-05845
Agencies: Executive Office of the President
Federal Register notes (as of 2026-10-19): See: EO 14147, January 20, 2025; EO 14230, March 6, 2025
What Executive Order 14250 says
Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 63 (Thursday, April 3, 2025) [Federal Register Volume 90, Number 63 (Thursday, April 3, 2025)] [Presidential Documents] [Pages 14549-14551] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2025-05845] Presidential Documents Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 63 / Thursday, April 3, 2025 / Presidential Documents ___________________________________________________________________ Title 3-- The President [[Page 14549]] Executive Order 14250 of March 27, 2025 Addressing Risks From WilmerHale By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Background. My Administration is committed to addressing the significant risks associated with law firms, particularly so-called ``Big Law'' firms, that engage in conduct detrimental to critical American interests. Many firms take actions that threaten public safety and national security, limit constitutional freedoms, degrade the quality of American elections, or undermine bedrock American principles. Moreover, law firms regularly conduct this harmful activity through their powerful pro bono practices, earmarking hundreds of millions of their clients' dollars for destructive causes, that often directly or indirectly harm their own clients. Lawyers and law firms that engage in...
Opening of the official text; read it in full in the Federal Register.
Constitution Index
“VFA Constitution grade”
Fails constitutional review
Graded 2026-10-08
SI-generated grade · five published checks · not individually reviewed by a person · methodology
Executive Order 14250 imposes firm-specific clearance, contracting, access, and hiring penalties because of WilmerHale's protected legal advocacy and associations. While the President has general authority over federal security and procurement, targeting a named firm for its viewpoints and representations violates the First Amendment, individual sovereignty, and Fifth Amendment due process, warranting grade F.
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✗ Concern · Enumerated powers
Article II vests executive power and directs faithful execution, and Congress has authorized procurement and classified-information systems, so the President has some authority over clearances and contracting generally. But no enumerated power authorizes singling out a named private law firm for government-wide punishment because of its protected advocacy, pro bono docket, and hiring of disfavored… -
✗ Concern · Bill of Rights
First Amendment: order imposes adverse government consequences — clearance suspension, contract termination review, building and engagement bans, hiring blacklist — expressly because of WilmerHale's pro bono representations, partisan representations, election-litigation positions, and association with named lawyers including Robert Mueller. That is retaliation for protected speech, association, an… -
✗ Concern · Individual sovereignty
The order restricts what lawyers and a law firm may do with their own labor, speech, association, and belief — choice of clients, pro bono causes, election and immigration advocacy, and employment associations — by attaching government-wide penalties to disfavored advocacy. The burden is on the government to justify such restriction with a compelling constitutional justification pursued by the lea… -
✗ Concern · Decentralization
Management of federal clearances, federal buildings, and federal procurement can require federal-level rules, so individual and local handling is not expected. However the order consolidates upward beyond minimum necessary: it centralizes in the Presidency and Office of Management and Budget a firm-specific blacklist that sweeps in third-party contractors who merely do business with WilmerHale, an… -
✗ Concern · Due process and takings
Fifth Amendment Due Process Clauses: the order directs immediate suspension of active clearances pending review, cessation of government goods and facilities, contract termination to the maximum extent permitted, and access, engagement, and hiring restrictions against a named firm and its employees, without prior fair notice of specific chargeable violations, opportunity to be heard, neutral adjud…
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