- A policy and law scholar told Fortune that Trump believes his threats have pushed a prominent law firm to back down and called it an abuse of presidential power that threatens the constitutional rights of all Americans. The WhiteHouse said all of Trump’s executive actions are lawful, constitutional, and intended to deliver on the promises he made to the American people.
President Donald Trump dropped an executive order targeting a high-profile law firm after he said it made a number of concessions. One of those concessions: $40 million in pro bono legal service to causes championed by his administration.
About a week earlier, Trump signed an executive order directing heads of departments and agencies to strip Paul Weiss of its security clearance, restrict its access to federal buildings, and terminate government contracts held by the firm. Trump cited Paul Weiss’s past involvement in a lawsuit against those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot and its prior association with Mark Pomerantz, an attorney who investigated Trump for the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Trump also claimed Paul Weiss discriminates against its employees on the basis of race through race and gender quotas that do not align with his administration’s removing diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
Paul Weiss was dropped by a client days after the executive order. (Some of Paul Weiss’s clients have included Apollo Global Management, IBM, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup.)
Then on Thursday, Trump said on Truth Social that the law firm agreed that the justice system is betrayed when misused to achieve political ends and that law firms should not favor any political party when choosing who to represent.
“Lawyers abandon the profession’s highest ideals when they engage in partisan decision-making, and betray the ethical obligation to represent those who are unpopular or disfavored in a particular environment,” the president’s post states.
Trump also said the law firm would represent clients of all political viewpoints, conservative or liberal, pro bono; it would only engage in merit-based hiring and conduct an audit of its employment practices; and as mentioned earlier, it would dedicate $40 million worth in pro bono legal services for veterans and a task force to combat antisemitism, among other mutually agreed projects.
“The President is agreeing to this action in light of a meeting with Paul Weiss Chairman, Brad Karp, during which Mr. Karp acknowledged the wrongdoing of former Paul Weiss partner, Mark Pomerantz, the grave dangers of Weaponization, and the vital need to restore our System of Justice,” a statement by the White House included in the post read.
Karp, in a statement included in the post, said the law firm was pleased the president withdrew the order and looks forward to a future relationship with the administration.
Karp and Paul Weiss did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment; the firm did not issue its own announcement. But Karp reportedly sent a company-wide email Thursday evening about the deal to assure his staff it was on par with Paul Weiss’s principles, per the New York Times.
Meanwhile, Pomerantz in a statement to the New York Times said: “I engaged in no wrongdoing by working as a prosecutor to uphold the rule of law.”
Trump has targeted other law firms with executive orders and it has prompted criticism from politicians, scholars, and the American Bar Association.
The American Bar Association would not comment on the arrangement but said lawyers and law firms are being targeted for suing the government or representing someone the government does not like, in an email statement to Fortune. “Over the last weeks, we have seen a troubling pattern of action from the highest levels of our government,” it said. “We cannot accept government actions that seek to tip the scales of justice in this manner.”
Perkins Coie, another law firm in a similar predicament, previously told Fortune the executive order was “patently unlawful” and it intended to challenge it. A federal judge later blocked most of the order, claiming Trump was singling out the firm because it represented his political opponents.
Lawyers have to be free to represent causes that may be adverse to those in power without fear of retaliation, and they should not be pressured to represent clients or causes that are favored by official authorities, Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, told Fortune in an email. They should not be branded as wrongdoers either, Olson said, or coerced to do so. Still, it is not clear thus far that Paul Weiss has actually made the commitment Trump has described, he said.
“What is clear is that Trump himself believes that his threats have caused a prominent law firm to back down on important principles of independence, and that he has used the powers of the presidency to gratify his wish for revenge against a particular lawyer who stood up to him,” Olsen said. “This is calculated to chill and deter vigorous courtroom advocacy against Trump, and it is an abuse of presidential power that imperils the constitutional rights of all Americans. We can only hope that other litigants will press federal courts for rulings speedily vindicating those constitutional rights.”
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields in a statement to Fortune said: “All of President Trump’s executive actions are lawful, constitutional, and intended to deliver on the promises he made to the American people.”
Partisan elected officials and judicial activists who want to legally obstruct Trump’s agenda are defying the Americans who re-elected him, he continued. The administration intends to fight battles in court and will prevail, he stated.
