NEW from me: The inside story of how the prominent media-fighting law firm Clare Locke was torn apart. nytimes.com/2024/04/10/bus… Clare Locke — run by the husband-and-wife team of Tom Clare and Libby Locke —  helped popularize efforts to attack the media and delegitimize unfavorable articles. It’s the country’s top defamation firm.

Despite its high profile, Clare Locke has received little outside scrutiny.

Major new @nytimes investigation: Close calls involving US airlines are occurring far more frequently than has been made public, with multiple dangerous incidents happening every week on average this year. @melbournecoal @emilysteel nytimes.com/interactive/20… We obtained a trove of internal @FAANews records that detail dozens of near misses and other significant incidents, involving all major US airlines, that have not been publicly disclosed. This is on top of a spate of headline-grabbing close calls earlier this year.

Examples:

Breaking: Federal prosecutors in Boston have filed criminal charges against three men for a string of attacks on the homes of @laurenchooljian and another @nhpr journalist last year. Story coming soon @nytimes

Here's the backstory on the attacks >> nytimes.com/2023/06/06/bus… The vandalism took place shortly after Chooljian and NHPR ran an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by Eric Spofford, who owned a network of rehab centers in NH.

The complaint says that "a close personal associate" of Spofford orchestrated the attacks.

News: The gambling industry bans sports-betting partnerships with universities, following a @nytimes investigation into deals in which schools had a financial incentive to get their students to start wagering. apnews.com/article/sports… This change is the latest result of a major NYT exposé in November by @annabettss @waltbogdanich @eliz_sander @allypengelly @drewlitt nytimes.com/2022/11/20/bus…

Major new @nytimes investigation: For years, NYU Langone’s Manhattan emergency room has been secretly giving priority access to donors, trustees and other VIPs, while providing only cursory care to the homeless. @sarahkliff @jbsgreenberg @virginiahughes 🧵 nytimes.com/2022/12/22/hea… We spoke to dozens of doctors and other @nyulangone ER staff. They said they were pressured – sometimes in writing – to give special treatment to wealthy VIPs. Some patients' electronic medical records even include notes indicating that they are considering major gifts to NYU.

New @nytimes investigation: Hospitals have been hammered by shortages of nurses and other staff. They blame the pandemic and tight labor markets.

We found another cause: years of layoffs and cost-cutting as hospital chains raced to increase profits. nytimes.com/2022/12/15/bus… We focused in particular on @Ascensionorg, one of the largest nonprofit hospital chains. It has long boasted about its prowess at reducing labor costs, often via layoffs.

Then the pandemic hit, and Ascension didn’t have enough staff. @RebeccaDRobbins @katie_thomas @jbsgreenberg

Anyone who turns on the TV today is likely to see an ad for sports betting. Virtually overnight, sports betting has gone from being mostly illegal in the US to being everywhere.

Why? How? At what cost?

Today @nytimes is publishing a 4-part investigation into this industry. 🧵🧵 Part 1: After SCOTUS in 2018 opened door to sports betting, the gambling and sports industries launched an epic lobbying blitz in state capitals.

To get their way, lobbyists showered lawmakers with money, gifts and dubious data. @EricLiptonNYT @kenvogel nytimes.com/2022/11/20/bus…

A curious thing happened to me today. (Short 🧵)

I was scheduled to speak at @CardozoLaw @BurnsEthics about "Servants of the Damned." The talk was moderated by a prominent @CornellLaw professor, Brad Wendel.

Here's the flyer that was posted at the law school about the event. Around midnight last night, Wendel received via email a 3-page letter from Kevyn Orr, a top @JonesDay partner. The letter was ostensibly about a paper Wendel wrote last year that touched on blowback Jones Day received for its Trump/GOP work.

The letter also criticized me.

A whistleblower basically says Trump Media (which runs Truth Social) and $DWAC are lying to federal regulators about when their deal talks began — and he has photos and documents to back up his claims. @MattGoldstein26 nytimes.com/2022/10/25/bus… Among the many delicious nuggets in this story is the fawning letter that DWAC’s CEO, Patrick Orlando, wrote to Trump last year. (The letter could be helpful to regulators in showing how long the talks had been going on, possibly in violation of SEC rules.)

Jones Day's once and future lawyers played key roles in the conservative remaking of the Supreme Court. Top partners are friends with Amy Coney Barrett.

So it's interesting to see that @JonesDay has two cases coming before SCOTUS in the coming months. nytimes.com/2022/08/25/mag… 1. Jones Day is representing Joseph Percoco as he seeks to overturn his conviction for “honest services” fraud. Oral arguments this fall.

Jones Day has become the leader in challenging the authority of federal prosecutors to charge people with public corruption.

Last week @WSJopinion published a piece by a top @JonesDay lawyer attacking “Servants of the Damned.” It distorted my reporting and words, while ignoring the substance of my critique of giant firms like Jones day.

My letter to the editor in response: wsj.com/articles/jones… At the risk of sounding peevish, @WSJopinion gave Jones Day 800+ words to twist my words. They’re allowing me barely 200 to respond.

Here is the full piece I sent them and that they said they wouldn’t consider publishing because, at 650 words, it was “too long.”

Today the @nytimes is publishing the first two installments in a series called "Profits Over Patients."

It's about how tax-exempt hospitals have strayed from their charitable missions for the sake of fatter profits – with profound consequences for the US healthcare system. 🧵 1st story: We found that @Providence, one of the country's largest nonprofit chains, worked with @McKinsey to find ways to wring millions out of poor patients who weren't supposed to pay in the first place. @jbsgreenberg @katie_thomas @virginiahughes
nytimes.com/2022/09/24/bus…

To obsessives like me, there are some fascinating nuggets buried deep in the NY AG's complaint against Trump:
• @IvankaTrump's joyful reaction upon learning of the low interest rates @DeutscheBank was offering on loans, which saved Trump Org at least $85M
int.nyt.com/data/documentt… @IvankaTrump @DeutscheBank Here we have some new details about the unraveling of the relationship between Trump and Deutsche in 2020, after the Trump Org refused to answer the bank's questions about the accuracy of his financial statements.

"Servants of the Damned" – my book investigating the awesome and often-corrosive power that giant law firms secretly wield over our politics, economy and society – is being published today.

I think it's an important book. A short 🧵 on why I wrote it. harpercollins.com/products/serva… For every business scandal I've covered over the years, big law firms were lurking in the background.

Lawyers at these firms quietly dished info to me and many other reporters. One result: The media largely avoided writing critically about our sources in the legal industry.

NEW: How a powerful law firm's years of scorched-earth tactics helped keep problems with powdered baby formula from becoming a national scandal – until this year.

From my forthcoming book, SERVANTS OF THE DAMNED, which will be published in *one week*. nytimes.com/2022/09/06/bus… The law firm @JonesDay is best known for representing Trump and filling the judiciary with conservatives. But it is also a powerhouse defending big companies like Abbott Labs.

Abbott hired the firm to defend it against lawsuits when babies fell ill after drinking formula.

The day after Supreme Court overturned Roe, Amy Coney Barrett was at a private party at the home of a top @JonesDay partner who oversaw the firm's SCOTUS-focused practice. Jones Day had a case pending before the court.

First SERVANTS OF THE DAMNED excerpt nytimes.com/2022/08/25/mag… Barrett and the party’s hosts were friends, and it’s not unusual for justices to mingle with top lawyers. But the party showed how closely entwined Jones Day had become with the judicial and legal revolution it helped set off.

Lots more in the article. nytimes.com/2022/08/25/mag…

A trove of newly released documents show the Trump administration pushed to add a citizenship question to the census to help Republicans win elections, not to protect people's voting rights.

A brief 🧵 on two of the lawyers involved: nytimes.com/2022/07/20/us/… The new documents – released by @OversightDems – show that this effort was in large part orchestrated by two lawyers, James Uthmeier at the Commerce Dept and John Gore at DOJ.

What's not mentioned in the report is that both men had recently joined the Trump admin from @JonesDay.

SCOOP: Word of Trump Media's $300 million fundraising deal leaked months in advance to a Miami investment firm that is now coming under scrutiny from federal authorities, sources tell @nytimes @MattGoldstein26. nytimes.com/2022/07/18/bus… A senior executive at the Miami firm, Rocket One Capital, was also on the board of Digital World Acquisitions, which announced plans to merge with Trump Media in October. Sources tell us that the executive, Bruce Garelick, mentioned the planned deal to his Rocket One colleagues.

I’m thrilled to reveal my forthcoming book. It’s a years-long investigation of the corrosive power of giant law firms and their roles protecting dangerous companies and eroding democracy.

SERVANTS OF THE DAMNED will be published Sept. 13. Preorder here: harpercollins.com/products/serva… SERVANTS OF THE DAMNED largely focuses on @JonesDay, whose clients include the Trump campaign, Russian oligarchs and Purdue Pharma.

I was shocked by some of what I learned about the firm via internal documents and interviews with whistleblowing employees.

Here’s a description:

NEW: The @nytimes obtained records detailing how a Russian oligarch's shell company invested in a US hedge fund with the help of a bunch of US, European and Caribbean enablers.

We’re naming names. (with @MattGoldstein26 @PreetaTweets) nytimes.com/2022/03/21/bus… The records pertain to a $20 million transaction.

The money started in the Austrian bank account of a British Virgin Islands shell company. Then it went through another Austrian bank and @jpmorgan, before arriving in a Cayman Islands vehicle managed by a big US hedge fund.

As of last week, the law firm @bakermckenzie boasted on its website that it represented Kremlin-controlled companies likes VTB and Gazprom. That language is now gone. bakermckenzie.com/en/locations/e…

I'm waiting to hear from BM whether this means the firm has dropped these clients. On a related note, a source points out that @bakermckenzie is a tenant of the sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich in Moscow. The firm is in Abramovich's White Gardens building, whose website even has a photo of BM's offices. whitegardens.ru/en/photos/albu…