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BumRushDaShow

(151,112 posts) Tue Apr 22, 2025, 03:51 PM Tuesday

Democrats Demand Answers From Top Law Firms That Caved To Trump's Wishes

Source: Huff Post

Apr 22, 2025, 03:04 PM EDT

WASHINGTON — Key Democrats sent scathing letters to five prominent law firms demanding details on the lucrative deals they cut with President Donald Trump to avoid being attacked by him, accusing them of being “complicit” in his efforts to break laws. “We write today regarding President Trump’s April 11, 2025, announcement that Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP (“Cadwalader”) reached an agreement with President Trump in order to avoid executive orders targeted at your firm,” reads a letter to one of these firms, from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

“Your capitulation puts you in the distasteful company of several other large law firms who have decided to permit President Trump to suppress their speech and dictate who they can and cannot take as clients in blatant violation of the rights guaranteed to all Americans by the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution,” they said. “Your agreement makes you complicit in efforts to undermine the rule of law and to turn private attorneys into President Trump’s personal law firm, ready to do whatever he decides,” they continue. “The American people and Congress deserve transparency with respect to the President’s ongoing assault on constitutional rights and the rule of law.”

Cadwalader is one of nine top law firms that have collectively agreed to provide Trump with nearly $1 billion in free legal services, in exchange for the president not abusing his power to punish them by stripping them of federal contracts or security clearances for employees. Trump announced his deals with five of these firms earlier this month.

Raskin and Blumenthal said Tuesday that they wrote to five of these firms last Friday, demanding details relating to who facilitated the deals they cut with Trump and what terms they agreed to. They give the firms until April 28 to provide responses to the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Raskin and Blumenthal are the top Democrats on these committees, respectively.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-law-firms-caved-trump_n_6806aecee4b06d0beefcfb3f

Link to Senator Blumenthal and Rep. Raskin PRESS RELEASE - Blumenthal & Raskin Demand Transparency & Accountability from Big Law Firms as Trump Continues Assault on the Rule of Law

Link to LETTER (PDF) - https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/athena/files/2025/04/22/6807c2dde4b09fc23f9205d5.pdf

(letter also available in a PDF viewer at the OP article link at the bottom of the page)

12 replies

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Highlight:

Democrats Demand Answers From Top Law Firms That Caved To Trump's Wishes (Original Post) BumRushDaShow Tuesday OP

How effective is this? Raven123 Tuesday #1

Most entities that get information requests from Congress DO reply BumRushDaShow Tuesday #2

Thank you. Would a subpoena require majority support from the relevant committee(s)? Raven123 Tuesday #4

That's the catch when the GOP controls and our members want one BumRushDaShow Tuesday #8

I can see trump threatening choie Tuesday #6

Well he could do that BumRushDaShow Tuesday #9

These firms may find cause to regret their decision LetMyPeopleVote Tuesday #3

That's an EXCELLENT analogy! BumRushDaShow Tuesday #5

A law firm's reputation is vital. This directly impacts their reputations. Martin68 Tuesday #7

And here I thought the only firm to fold would be Dewey, Cheatham and Howe. mdbl Tuesday #10

So glad to see Big Law taking some shit for caving to trump. (nt) Paladin Tuesday #11

WHERE IS MY ROY COHN!!! BidenRocks Yesterday #12

Raven123

(6,604 posts)

1. How effective is this?

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 03:59 PM

Tuesday

Do the firms have to comply with the demands of this letter?

BumRushDaShow

(151,112 posts)

2. Most entities that get information requests from Congress DO reply

Reply to Raven123 (Reply #1)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 04:15 PM

Tuesday

in many cases, with the appropriate requested info. In other cases, they might only provide some and will get a follow-up request for more. If they start screwing around, it might lead to a subpoena and for P.R. purposes, that's NOT what most want to be associated with, so they eventually get around to complying... for the most part.

Alternately, the MAGat loons are the tiny percent who defy such info requests (often to their peril in the end).

Raven123

(6,604 posts)

4. Thank you. Would a subpoena require majority support from the relevant committee(s)?

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Reply #2)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 04:19 PM

Tuesday

BumRushDaShow

(151,112 posts)

8. That's the catch when the GOP controls and our members want one

Reply to Raven123 (Reply #4)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 05:02 PM

Tuesday

Although if after an election we take it back over, the original requests don't suddenly disappear, and we can immediately authorize a subpoena to continue the fact-finding endeavor.

choie

(5,359 posts)

6. I can see trump threatening

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Reply #2)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 04:59 PM

Tuesday

the law firms to intimidate them into not talking to the Dems.

BumRushDaShow

(151,112 posts)

9. Well he could do that

Reply to choie (Reply #6)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 05:06 PM

Tuesday

but then the firms have to deal with their own employees, many who have REJECTED the bullying. So the potential is there for them to self-destruct (through a mass resignation) if they make the wrong decision and/or don't parse it in a way to satisfy their employees.

I.e., if there are few lawyers left in a "big" law firm then the "big" law firm is no longer "big" and any competitors that they have that resisted, could benefit from their "loss".

LetMyPeopleVote

(161,888 posts)

3. These firms may find cause to regret their decision

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 04:15 PM

Tuesday

Lando Calrissian famously complained, “This deal keeps getting worse all the time.” How many law firms are saying the same thing about their Trump deals?
https://bsky.app/profile/stevebenen.com/post/3lmzhvatdn22x

Remember when Lando Calrissian complained, in reference to his agreement with Darth Vader, “This deal keeps getting worse all the time”?

I wonder how many law firms are now saying the same thing about their deals with Trump

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/prominent-law-firms-lando-calrissian-common-rcna201726

In “The Empire Strikes Back,” Lando Calrissian struck an agreement with Darth Vader, which probably made sense to him at the time. In fact, Calrissian told Han Solo in the 1980 “Star Wars” movie that he had made a deal that would keep the Empire out of Cloud City “forever.”

As the Cloud City administrator soon learned, however, the Empire did not fully intend to follow through on its commitments, even if Calrissian held up his end of the bargain. As the film’s dramatic third act, Vader told his ostensible partner: “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

As he realized that he had reached an agreement with someone he shouldn’t have trusted, Calrissian complained, “This deal keeps getting worse all the time.”.....

But as The New York Times reported, some of these same firms are finding, as Calrissian put it, that their deals keep getting worse all the time.

When some of the nation’s biggest law firms agreed to deals with President Trump, the terms appeared straightforward: In return for escaping the full force of his retribution campaign, the firms would do some free legal work on behalf of largely uncontroversial causes like helping veterans. Mr. Trump, it turns out, has a far more expansive view of what those firms can be called on to do.

Instead of working on anodyne causes, the firms are discovering that the president effectively believes that he sees their attorneys as his own. The Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that Trump has suggested in recent days that he wants the firms to help him negotiate trade deals and possibly help revive the coal industry, too......

Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, told the Times, in reference to the firms, “They thought they made one-shot deals which they would fulfill. But the administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude.”

Putting aside the question of whether the firms, like Calrissian, should’ve seen this coming, the broader question is whether the firms will do what Calrissian ultimately did and reverse course.

Indeed, it’s not my place to give the firms’ partners advice, but it is worth noting that if they didn’t enter into a legally binding contract with Trump, and they’re no longer pleased with the president’s demands and expectations, there’s nothing stopping them from joining the firms that have already decided to fight back.

I love the Star Wars analogy

BumRushDaShow

(151,112 posts)

5. That's an EXCELLENT analogy!

Reply to LetMyPeopleVote (Reply #3)

Tue Apr 22, 2025, 04:19 PM

Tuesday

I know Leia was onto Lando early on!

(ETA - but then that film's use of Bobba Fett was the start of what would become an ENTIRE UNIVERSE that was generated around that character and his origin