"... they need for people to bring lawsuits and matters before them. And the people best equipped to do that are the big law firms in Washington. But if those firms are afraid that if they enter that fight, they could lose all of their business, Trump is then essentially taking one of his biggest adversaries off the playing field.... There are other lawyers who can bring these matters and that are skilled, but the ones with the most horsepower are potentially being sidelined. I've been reporting on this for the past week and a half, and I've learned that the leaders of these law firms have gone back and forth with each other about what to do.... Privately, they will all tell me how horrific they think this is. But publicly, they're saying very little."
Said Mike Schmidt, on "How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission," today's episode of the NYT podcast, "The Daily" (link goes to Podscribe, with full transcript and audio).
And here's Schmidt's article from a few days ago: "Trump’s Revenge on Law Firms Seen as Undermining Justice System/The president’s use of government power to punish firms is seen by some legal experts as undercutting a basic tenet: the right to a strong legal defense" ("With the stroke of a pen last week, Mr. Trump sought to cripple Perkins Coie, a firm that worked with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, by stripping its lawyers of security clearances needed to represent some clients and limiting the firm’s access to government buildings and officials. That action came after he revoked security clearances held by any lawyers at the firm Covington & Burling who were helping provide legal advice to Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two federal indictments against Mr. Trump.)
58 comments:
Um, tough shit assholes.
Lawyers were disbarred if they represented Trump.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/09/26/kenneth-chesebro-charged-in-wisconsin-here-are-all-the-former-trump-lawyers-now-facing-legal-consequences/
Ha ha ha "Help us Robe - bee - wan, you're our only hope ! "
"But if those firms are afraid that if they enter that fight, they could lose all of their business..."
That's not why they're afraid. They're afraid Trump might win cases they might bring setting precedent that REALLY puts them out of business, for good. And since when do law firms decide the status of their own security clearances? The effing gall.
I mean, these are my principles, and if you pay me, I can have other principles.
What Schmidt is saying without realizing that he's saying it is that Democrat lawyers will put $$$ ahead of EVERYTHING else and he's not wrong.
But that doesn't say anything about Trump. It says a LOT about Democrats.
And no ... if your law firm is SUING the United States government, you can expect that the United States government isn't going to allow ANY department of it to use your law firm for any purpose whatsoever.
That's not a threat. Oh wait ... yes it is. It's a threat. And it's going to work.
"With the stroke of a pen last week ..."
So, no question that Trump did indeed sign that. Unlike the Biden pardons.
Nobody has mentioned that Robert Hur declared Joe Biden legally incompetent to try for his crimes. So that's ipso facto evidence that Joe Biden wasn't competent to have some staffer copy and paste his signature on some pardons like they're Dan Rather typing up TANG memos or something.
There are some Trump lawyers up for disbarment even now - for reasons known only to the B.A. Isn't that interesting? Perkins Coie had a SCIF facility in-house. Isn't that interesting? We're reaching the 'It's not working, let's try insulting their intelligence' stage of the drama.
“But if those firms are afraid that if they enter that fight, they could lose all of their business, Trump is then essentially taking one of his biggest adversaries off the playing field.... There are other lawyers who can bring these matters and that are skilled, but the ones with the most horsepower are potentially being sidelined.”
Huh. Now do the lawyers for non-Democrat issues like J6 defenders or election fraud cases.
Pretty mild 'revenge' when weighed against the actions taken against Trump and his associates the last several years. It's as if the entire legal apparatus existed only to go after Donald Trump, to ruin him, ultimately to imprison him. Are there really people expressing surprise that Trump is displeased? The legal establishment is damned lucky that Trump is actually not 'literally Hitler.'
"With the stroke of a pen last week…”
Like a Nike swoosh?
Gee, it's as if the lawyers with "the most horsepower" bring something to court that can't be named.
Just plain garden-variety conflict review should keep a firm from representing both parties, no? Or even from having the keys to the other party’s filing cabinets (ie, a clearance)? If this is the first time these firms are seriously considering this kind of decision, it means someone was cutting corners with conflict analysis.
Also what was stated above, about how the new standard is to destroy your opponent’s ability to get the best representation. When the standard changes, I change my behavior. What do you all do?
They call it a Bully Pulpit for a reason.
There are lots of excellent lawyers in America, and very few of them work at the 'big firms' Schmidt is talking about. And there are many legal advocacy groups (on both sides as well as the middle of the partisan spectrum) who are very active in litigating the kinds of policy or agenda-driven cases Schmidt is talking about. The notion that those kinds of cases won't be litigated (or litigated well) because Trump has targeted Perkins and now Paul Weiss is seriously overblown. And Schmidt's suggestion that "those firms are afraid that if they enter that fight, they could lose all of their business" strikes me as ridiculous. Paul Weiss is not worried about losing all its business by opposing Trump -- very likely, just the opposite.
"But if those firms are afraid that if they enter that fight, they could lose all of their business, Trump is then essentially taking one of his biggest adversaries off the playing field..."
Cry me a river. These are the same people cheering Biden on when he had the DoJ and FBI raiding the offices of lawyers representing Trump, and in fact Trump's impeachment lawyer, Rudy Giuliani has been paupered, had all of his computers and phones seized and combed through, etc, for defending Trump.
No doubt the seizure of the phones, etc, by the FBI was to find out what Giuliani had on the Bidens.
This would seem an appropriate check on an out of control judiciary. Play ball or no more billions in taxpayer funded Treasury looting...
Some judicial systems have loser pays...time to pay losers...
I suspect the same dynamic was at work during Democratic administrations. Why are we only hearing about it now?
Boo-hoo, Big Law.
Did anyone think about this when the Demmies got Trump lawyers to quit? How about when the pushed disbarment for Trump lawyers? No? If not, why not?
Acts have consequences, don't they?
"We won." Remember that?
This article makes me furious. The EXACT same thing happened TO Trump. He could not get any prestigious law firms to defend him from the nonsense charges for the same reason. Trump didn't make the rules. The Democrats did. Now they are angry that he is playing by EXACTLY the rules that THEY made.
John Eastman.
Too fucking bad. The Big Firms went out of their way to harass Trump in his first term. This is payback and it’s a bitch.
It amazes me that someone can claim that a security clearance is a vested interest. I thought it was for the interest of the nation, not a tool to make money.
I don't want the scheming clown posse from Big Law to have security clearances. They are not trustworthy, and they lack both judgment and a moral compass.
Democrats seem to have no ability to stop him
I'm so old I remember when elections had consequences.
Bullshit. The "Big Firms" are not intimidated. And they have no qualms about taking cases and suing Trump or the administration. If there's any intimidating going on, its usually by the "big firms".
Leland said...
"Lawyers were disbarred if they represented Trump."
The Radical Left created the new rules, never imagining they could be used against them. They're not liking having to live under those rules. Too bad, so sad, sucks to be you.
Trump is defunding the swamp critters. They die in the light of day without a thick layer of government funding covering their miserable hides. He very justifiably stopped a big law firm from furhter government business after that firm was used by Hillary Clinton's operatives to create years of chaos based on lies in his first term. If that stops other law firms from such shenanigans, do it every damn day until his term ends, and have his successors continue doing it.
The big firms are only scared to the extent that they know most of what the lawsuits are for are baseless. It doesn't look good losing prominent cases, especially ones the general public understands that plaintiffs have no case.
I hope the judiciary won't destroy their legitimacy in the eyes of the public to get Trump like so many institutions have done. Like the legacy media, like the FBI, like the public health agencies, like the Democrat Party and so many in the GOP have done. Like the elite universities have done. The list goes on.
A few extremist judges can do a lot of damage.
Reading this blog has gotten me asking myself the important questions, such as, which do I like better, Big Firms or Natural Heavies?
Is it ok for law firms to be used as money launder political operation funding in a way that the political operation cannot legally directly spend?
Is it ok for them to use privilege to hide the actions of their client and to be used as a black box outsourcing model?
I could go on, because it's pretty well documented how Perkins Coie whitewashed ( Bleach-bitted?) Hillary Clinton's 2016 funding of the Russia/Steele Dossier and other political operations.
"Democrats seem to have no ability to stop him..."
Stop the guy who's doing the things he said he would do when he was running for office, and who the voters chose based on those promises? Very democratic.
At this point, I don't care if the price of eggs goes to $100/dozen. I hope Trump and his administration focus their energy on shining a light on all the rot in the shithole that is Washington, DC and eliminating as much of it as they possibly can.
Someone doesn't like the new rules they themselves made.
I'm reminded of the line from Oceans 11: "This sort of thing used to be civilized. You'd hit a guy, he'd whack you, done. But with Benedict... at the end of this, he'd *better* not know you're involved, not know your names or think you're dead, because he'll kill ya, and *then* he'll go to work on ya."
"... they need for people to bring lawsuits and matters before them. And the people best equipped to do that are the big law firms in Washington."
Either Mike Schmidt is the dimmest bulb on the tree, or the Democrats he talks to are far dumber than even I have surmised. Are they totally oblivious of recent history. The Democrats spent eight years if not longer trying to destroy Donald Trump, first with lies, then with lawyers, then with bullets. They failed, not just bigly, epically. But they never employed the one weapon that never fails in the hands of the righteous, the lawful will of lawful voters untainted by bribery and corruption. That's what Americans call democracy, a word constantly on the lips of Democrats. However, by their reliance on lawyers and pliant district judges they reveal they haven't a fucking clue as to what they're talking about.
The firms Trump has singled out have, for years, been credited by the press for their efforts to lawfare Trump. A shot across the bow is the least they deserve. Roberts can be somewhat of a simp about what he sees happening before his eyes. I don't blame him for defending the judiciary, but I hope that behind the scenes he is passing the word about partisan decision making being a danger to the system itself Only a couple of years ago we had the Dems talking about packing the court now we have the Rs in full cry. Perhaps Roberts and others should do some soul searching about the appearance of neutrality being beneficial for the justice system.
When your client comes to you and wants to create a fake oppo dossier calling the opposition leader a Russian agent, and they want you to hide that they paid for it, and they want you to push this fake accusation into the FBI, CIA and other places, a good law firm would tell their client that's a bad idea.
Perkins Coie just ask "how high?"
Bob Boyd 3:18 PM wins the internet!
JSM
@Althouse, four years ago neither you nor anyone else associated with the legal profession seemed even slightly concerned at orchestrated and coordinated campaigns to threaten the livelihoods of Trump’s lawyers. So don’t start whining now — that horse has left the stable.
Roberts can be somewhat of a simp about what he sees happening before his eyes. I don't blame him for defending the judiciary, but I hope that behind the scenes he is passing the word about partisan decision making being a danger to the system itself.
Good point. Roberts is an "institutionalist," or so I'm told. He isn't going to just go along for ideological reasons if he thinks a decision will hurt the court or the political system. At least that's been the justification for what he does. I do hope that he'll prove that his motivation really is a concern for institutions and not just squishiness, and let the rogue judges know that they are hurting the judiciary.
I spent most of my career with a "Big Law" firm in DC. Looking back on my experiences, I couldn't honestly say whether the firm was "a Democrat firm" or "a Republican firm". But that was before so many institutions became polarized. There were a lot of young liberals working in the Nixon Administration - in non-ideological agencies, or even in left-wing agencies. Even when Reagan came in, there were plenty of places in government for a liberal lawyer to start building a career.
I think it was probably in the Obama Administration that the DC law community began to become partisanly polarized, and I had retired from full-time law practice by then, so I'm not a qualified expert. I'd love to hear what folks who have actual experience from inside the "belly of the beast" remember.
Remember when? Remember when Trump couldn't get a lawyer in D.C. because the lawyers feared they'd be boycotted or even disbarred? No, that was too long ago. Not even Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Harun said..."When your client comes to you and wants to create a fake oppo dossier calling the opposition leader a Russian agent, and they want you to hide that they paid for it, and they want you to push this fake accusation into the FBI, CIA and other places, a good law firm would tell their client that's a bad idea."
Yeah, I have zero sympathy for Perkins Coie.
And as someone upthread commented, how is it that security clearances are given for the benefit of a law firm? There should be ONE criteria and one criteria only. Does it benefit the UNITED STATES?
It's not payback. These law firms are corrupt and their principals are corrupt.
Perkins and Coie not only enablers, of the Russia hoax, defenders of Gitmo detainees, et al,
Q: What does one call the Perkins and Coie firm resting at the bottom of the ocean?
A: Pollution
Trump has certainly become a bone shoal of the wrecks of arrogant but incompetent politicians and media personalities.
This takes some huevos. Remember the attacks on Trump’s lawyers?
I thought the Babylon Bee captured what's going in the judiciary vs Trump right now the best - "Judge orders SpaceX to return stranded Astronauts back to the ISS".
I'm still waiting for the Roberts court to issue some directives to the lower courts about their abuse of TRO's, but maybe that's not going to happen at all.
JIM: I think you are correct that the SC will never put a stop to the decisions by 1 judge stopping everything across the country. This is just ridiculous and think the best thing Trump admin can act with no notice like they did with that terrorist from Columbia that they shipped off to Louisiana ASAP.
The president’s use of government power to punish firms is seen by some legal experts as undercutting a basic tenet: the right to a strong legal defense
Oh yes, I remember that right. That's why BigLaw volunteered to help J6 defendants and Trump Admin people the same way they've supported terrorists and gang members.
Oh, wait, that's right, they ONLY support the terrorists and gang members.
So there is no such right, and the Left can go fuck themselves.
Just how stupid do you have to be to trample rights your'e planning on invoking later?
Having been in law school at the time of the Chicago Seven trial (look it up) and having seen my peers flock to work on the defence of the Seven, a couple of years ago I asked the current dean if any of today's students were lining up to defend the J6 defendants. The answer was no.
I guess some civil liberties are more important than others.
Live by the sword...
What’s that saying?
What goes around,…
The Entrenched Washington Interests did worse to Trump’s lawyers. Laying traps for them, pressuring large law firms to refuse service, targeting them for reprisal due to their client, making up lawsuits and bar complaints to try to deny Trump representation.
Not gonna feel sorry because the Big Firms can no longer use their influence in Washington.
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