Executive Order 14237: Addressing Risks From Paul Weiss

What does Executive Order 14237 do?

Agencies were assigned firm-specific restrictions, but EO 14244 later revoked this order; it no longer supplies operative authority.

Reading the operative provisions of Executive Order 14237

EO 14237 applied firm-specific restrictions to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, including reviews of clearances, contracts and access. Those separate measures would have required agency decisions under the legal rules for each area. EO 14244 later expressly revoked EO 14237. The revocation is documented in the Federal Register text of EO 14244. As a result, EO 14237 no longer provides current authority for agencies to impose its firm-specific measures.

Revocation of this order should be distinguished from the status of ordinary security, contracting and facility-access laws. Agencies may still enforce generally applicable requirements, but they must rely on those independent authorities and follow the procedures that govern them. The 2025 order’s firm-specific findings do not become proven facts simply because they appeared in a presidential document, and its former directives cannot be treated as a standing government-wide rule after express revocation.

The order is useful as an example of how a later presidential action can end a prior directive without necessarily resolving every dispute about what happened while it was in effect. A reader assessing a past contract review or clearance action would need the agency record and any applicable court proceedings. For present authority, the decisive source is EO 14244’s revocation clause. This is why the page labels EO 14237 “Revoked” and names its successor rather than describing it as merely inactive or under review.

The two Presidential actions should be read together in date order: EO 14237 imposed the original measures, and EO 14244 withdrew that firm-specific directive after Paul Weiss agreed to remedial steps. The later revocation does not retroactively make every earlier agency act lawful or unlawful; that question depends on the underlying record and any applicable judgment. It does establish that EO 14237 itself is no longer an operative basis for new action. Agencies considering a present-day restriction must identify a separate generally applicable source of authority and apply it consistently.