What did Donald Trump do today?

He blackballed another law firm for employing one of the hundreds of lawyers involved in prosecuting him.

In recent weeks, Trump has issued a series of executive orders effectively blackballing specific law firms. The orders strip security clearances (often required for legal work involving the government), cancel government contracts, and even bar employees from entering government buildings. Three major firms in the DC legal ecosystem have been targeted, and today he added a fourth, Jenner & Block.

What these firms have in common is that they all employ or represented his political enemies and imagined persecutors. Perkins Coie represented the Hillary Clinton campaign. Mark Pomerantz, a New York prosecutor who investigated Trump's financial crimes, had previously been a partner at Paul, Weiss. Covington and Burling represented Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who brought two separate federal cases against Trump—though their work for Smith had nothing to do with the Trump trials. 

Jenner & Block, the target of today's order, has won several injunctions for different clients against the second Trump administration. It also employs Mark Weissmann, who worked for independent counsel Robert Mueller. Weissmann has appeared on television news and written a book discussing the Mueller investigation, which found that Russia illegally interfered "in sweeping and systematic fashion" in the 2016 campaign on Trump's behalf, and that Trump and his campaign knew about and welcomed that help.

Unlike many of Trump's other executive orders, which are symbolic or purport to do things he has no actual ability to do, these actually would have an effect if allowed to stand. Having large swathes of the federal legal community unable to take federal clients would create chaos and punish clients who had nothing to do with the targets of Trump's wrath.

Trump's executive orders do not attempt to conceal the rationale: they are explicit in their claims that Trump is punishing the firms for even indirect contact with the people who "politicized" the justice system.

For his part, Trump has appointed his personal criminal defense lawyers to the top three positions at the Justice Department, as well as the position of Solicitor General, and is attempting to install another one as a US Attorney. 

Why does this matter?

• Collective punishment and guilt by association is what dictatorships do.

• The government is not there to settle personal scores for the president.

• Trump was indicted for and convicted of crimes because of his own actions, not because prosecutors existed to make those cases.

• In a democracy, it is not illegal, unethical, or cause for punishment to file a lawsuit against the government.