The Trump administration indicated on Tuesday that it planned to renew its defense of executive orders that it had leveled against law firms, a sharp reversal a day after asking a court for permission to abandon the fight.
In a motion filed with the appeals court in the District of Columbia, where the cases are playing out, the Justice Department formally asked to withdraw its request on Monday to dismiss the cases against four law firms. It was not immediately clear how the court would respond; the department is scheduled to file a brief in the case on Friday.
The Justice Department did not comment. The White House declined to comment.
The move amounted to a dizzying turnabout in one of President Trump’s most audacious — and, many legal experts said, unconstitutional — attempts at subduing potentially powerful adversaries. It created new uncertainty in a legal profession already roiled by the orders, after some of the country’s biggest law firms thought they had put to rest a key part of the president’s retribution campaign less than 24 hours before.
On Monday, the administration, in a court filing, asked an appeals court if it could walk away from its appeal of victories the firms had won against the White House. The move was a significant concession by the White House that it could not stand behind its orders.
But on Tuesday morning, the Justice Department abruptly changed its position. In an email to the four firms contesting the executive orders, a department official apologized for the short notice and said it would file a motion to withdraw its voluntary dismissal.
The email was sent to the firms shortly after 10 a.m. The Justice Department asked the firms to indicate whether they planned to oppose its attempt to reverse course by 10:30 a.m.
Nearly two hours later, the Justice Department formally filed a motion to withdraw the motion from the previous day. The firms opposed the motion, according to the filing, calling it an “unexplained request to withdraw yesterday’s voluntary dismissal, to which all parties had agreed.”
A White House official said that there were ongoing discussions in the White House Counsel’s Office about how to proceed.
The orders seek to bar firms that refuse to capitulate to President Trump from government business and suggest that their clients could lose government contracts. They had spurred widespread panic in the legal profession and led many firms to submit to Mr. Trump rather than face the existential threat his directives represented.
But four firms — Perkins Coie, WilmerHale, Jenner & Block and Susman Godfrey — fought the orders, quickly receiving favorable rulings from district court judges. Nine others struck deals, most notably Paul Weiss, drawing sharp criticism.
It was not immediately clear on Tuesday what had prompted the about-face. One question that the administration’s decision a day earlier to abandon its cases raised was whether the deals it made with the nine firms would survive and whether those contracts — which were not made public — were considered unconstitutional given that the district court ruling would be final.
Shira A. Scheindlin, a former federal district judge in Manhattan, said on Tuesday morning that assuming the Justice Department went through with its plan to withdraw its motion to dismiss, it may have been looking to avoid that outcome. She expected that the administration would lose at the appeals court level but might have some faint hope at the Supreme Court.
She said the swift reversal was highly unusual. “How embarrassing to reverse yourself after all the bad press,” she added.
Tyler Pager contributed reporting.