Trump ‘Shakedown’ Deals Prompt More Questions for Law Firms (1)

Democrats are demanding more information from major law firms on deals reached with President Donald Trump to provide free legal services.

Four firms gave “inadequate” responses to earlier inquiries from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the pair said Tuesday.

“These responses only deepen our concern about what conditions are in place to coerce these firms into providing free legal services to the President’s pet causes—and what other provisions of their agreement these firms may be hiding,” Blumenthal and Raskin said in a joint statement to Bloomberg Law.

Major law firms have committed $940 million in legal services in a series of deals with Trump, seeking to avoid punitive executive orders like those targeting other firms and to resolve federal probes into diversity programs. The president has suggested he’ll tap the firms to work on trade issues stemming from his tariff war and in efforts to ramp up coal mining.

Blumenthal and Raskin on April 6 requested information from the White House and law firms Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and Milbank LLP. The lawmakers, which accused the White House of an “illegal shakedown,” requested records on communications and the legal justifications behind the agreements. They also sought information from Sullivan & Cromwell and Kirkland & Ellis about their roles in the deal process.

The lawmakers said Tuesday that they will seek “full transparency” from five additional firms that later struck deals with Trump: Kirkland, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Latham & Watkins, Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, and A&O Shearman.

“We will remain on watch if and when these firms drop clients to satisfy the President’s political preferences or provide free legal services to the Trump regime,” Blumenthal and Raskin said.

Four other firms are suing the administration after being hit with executive orders revoking lawyers’ security clearances, limiting their access to federal buildings, and threatening their clients’ government contracts because of the firms’ ties to lawyers that have investigated Trump or gone up against him in court. All four successfully obtained temporary restraining orders blocking most of the directives.

Poaching Denials

Paul Weiss’s March 20 deal with Trump was the first in the string of agreements. It came six days after the president issued an executive order against the firm.

The deal will not have any “material effect on the firm’s work,” Brad Karp, the firm’s chair, said in response to questions from the lawmakers. The Trump administration will not dictate which cases or clients the firm takes, Karp said.

Karp, in an email to Paul Weiss attorneys after the deal was announced, accused competitor law firms of trying to solicit its clients and recruit its lawyers. Kirkland and Sullivan & Cromwell were reported as attempting to poach lawyers from Paul Weiss after Trump issued the order against the firm.

“Sullivan & Cromwell did not use the Executive Order to ‘recruit’ Paul Weiss attorneys or to ‘poach’ its clients,” Sharon Nelles, managing partner of the firm’s litigation group, told Blumenthal and Raskin.

The firm received a unsolicited inquiry from a legal recruiter on behalf of a Paul Weiss attorney during the week after order, Nelles said. Sullivan & Cromwell decided it “would not pursue that inquiry or any such inquiries or undertake any recruitment efforts in response to the Executive Order,” she said.

Nelles also addressed the role of Sullivan & Cromwell co-chair Robert Giuffra, a close Trump ally. Giuffra, who was said to be in the running for Trump’s attorney general, is representing the president in an appeal over his criminal conviction of hiding a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

“Giuffra received an outreach on behalf of Paul Weiss requesting his assistance in reaching a resolution with the Administration,” Nelles said. Giuffra sought to help the firm and Trump “reach a mutually acceptable resolution,” she said.

Kirkland also denied trying to poach Paul Weiss lawyers or clients. W. Neil Eggleston, a Kirkland litigation partner and former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, responded to the lawmakers inquiries on behalf of the firm.

Willkie Farr has turned to O’Melveny & Myers to represent it in the inquiry, with K. Lee Blalack, the co-head of its litigation team in Washington, taking the lead.

The Trump administration reached out to Willkie in late March regarding a possible order against the firm, Blalack told the lawmakers. The firm began discussions with the administration about a resolution, ultimately determining that a deal “would best serve the interests of its clients, employees and other Firm stakeholders.”

Milbank, which is being represented by Quinn Emanuel’s Andrew Schapiro, referred the lawmakers to an internal email sent by its chair Scott Edelman after the deal was announced for answers to their questions. Skadden did not reply to the inquiry.