Thread by @JeanetteKStone1

"The law firms that capitulated to Trump are finally having to make good on their deal with the devil.

It's worth pausing here to contextualize just how extraordinary this all is—big Law firms have never before done free work for a sitting president, let alone pro bono work."
1/

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1969012302654357931

"Back in March, when Trump first began to issue executive orders punishing law firms for associating with his personal enemies, it is likely that some of the firms yet to be targeted thought that they could avoid a similar fate."
2/

"That’s probably what motivated 11 of the most prominent law firms in the country to seek out Trump and make deals with him despite the PR backlash that they suffered for doing so."
3/

"But for 10 of these 11 firms, these deals were preemptive — they were trying to stop something that hadn’t yet happened — which meant the deals they entered into were vague to the point of being nonsensical."
4/

"For example, when Congress pressed the firms for the details, one of them—Milbank—just told Congress to go look at 'an internal email to firm personnel' that had been reprinted in a legal industry trade magazine behind a paywall—not exactly the response of a confident party."
5/

"Another firm (A&O Shearman) quite literally told Congress that their entire deal consisted of what Trump had posted on social media — hardly a model of lawyerly thoroughness."
6/

"Presumably, the capitulating firms were hoping that these deals would prevent the same revocation of security clearances and cancellation of federal contracts that Trump had already leveled at other firms."
7/

"But none of that was included in the vague contents of the deals, leaving it entirely unclear what exactly these law firms were getting out of the exchange.

What was clearer was what Trump was getting out of it: namely, an open-ended promise from the capitulating law firms."
8/

"[Law firms promised to] devote hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono services to causes of his choosing.

In short: 11 of the most powerful and supposedly capable law firms in the country all made deals with Trump to do exactly what he wanted in exchange for...nothing."
9/

"These firms seemed to think that the vagueness of these deals was the very thing that would protect them."
10/

"[T]he firm Simpson Thacher tried to tell Congress that the deal 'does not dictate or restrict what pro bono matters we will take on moving forward'—while the firm Latham & Watkins said it 'maintains its complete independence as to the clients and matters the firm takes on.'"
11/

"And they stuck to this line despite the entire free-thinking public pointing out that the vagueness was precisely what would allow Trump to use the tremendous resources of these firms to do whatever he wanted."
12/

"[And they stuck to this line] despite Trump himself explicitly saying that he was going to use these firms to defend police officers accused of misconduct and help him in his ongoing trade war."
13/

"Now, to no one’s surprise — except their own — it looks like the capitulating firms are finally having to hold up their end of the bargain."
14/

"At least two of the law firms that made deals with Trump — Paul Weiss and Kirkland & Ellis — are currently 'working on a range of matters for the Commerce Department' for free, including negotiating Trump’s trade deals just as he said that they would."
15/

"Another firm, Skadden Arps, has been doing similar work for the Commerce Department and in relation to the government’s investment in Intel — though it is unconfirmed if it is part of their comparable deal with Trump or just independently bad decision-making on their part."
16/

"Paul Weiss had earlier said that its only deal commitments were to 'assist our nation's veterans, to combat anti-Semitism, and to promote the fairness of the justice system.'"
17/

"Kirkland & Ellis had said that it only committed to provide 'services on a non-partisan basis to a wide range of underserved populations.'

Apparently this now includes negotiating tariffs for the Commerce Department."
18/

"And this is just the work that has *accidentally* become public at this point.

Neither Trump nor the capitulating law firms are under any obligation to announce when one of these law firms contributes its services in accordance with their deals."
19/

"This likely means that this is just the beginning — both in terms of the types of work that these firms will be doing to hold up their end of the bargain, and in terms of how many of these 11 capitulating firms will be doing this work."
20/

"By attacking not only the people he doesn’t like, but the lawyers who represent them, Trump has made crystal clear that he does not think his opponents deserve the same legal rights as his allies.

This erodes a bedrock of the American legal system."
21/

By entering into these deals, these law firms have helped Trump to chip away at that notion and become complicit in his attack on our legal system.

For that complicity to come from these law firms is shocking.

They consist of *the* highest-paid lawyers in the country."
22/

"[These] well-resourced...lawyers...pride themselves on winning the hardest legal fights in the world....

In other words: these law firms are the exact set of people who are most capable of winning against Trump — and yet they chose to give up without a fight."
23/

"These firms are complicit in aiding...the most serious attack on the rule of law in the US to date — and that complicity casts serious doubts not only on their commitment to their own profession, but on the efficacy of their legal representation on behalf of their clients."
24/

"These are supposedly the very best lawyers in the country.... If these shining stars of the legal profession are willing to betray the very legal system that gives them their value at the mere possibility of a pay cut, one has to ask: is [the] system really working...?"
25/End.