Law firms that cut deals with Trump to stop executive orders are now fighting a secret courtroom battle, the New York Times reported.
According to the Times, the Justice Department has issued subpoenas to 13 elite law firms, including nine that struck deals with Trump early in his second term to fend off “crippling” executive orders. Four of the subpoenaed firms challenged those orders in court, the Times reported.
The nine firms that cut deals with Trump “have largely continued to generate vast profits and the White House has appeared to leave them alone,” the Times wrote. Those deals included agreements to pledge nearly a billion dollars in free legal work to causes supported by Trump to head off executive orders that would have crippled these firms, according to the Times.
“In recent days, behind closed doors, the uneasy truce between the firms and the White House has erupted into a pitched legal battle,” according to the Times, which reviewed one of the subpoenas. “Now, the Justice Department has taken the highly aggressive move of issuing subpoenas to the firms and is demanding that their leaders sit for depositions before Justice Department lawyers.”
The White House has been trying to hide the role of Boris Epshteyn, Trump’s personal lawyer, in striking the deals, but a recent lawsuit by the American Bar Association put a spotlight on the role of both Epshteyn and Trump ally Steve Bannon. The DOJ subpoenas issued to the law firms asked for communications between them and Epshteyn, according to the Times.
“The government’s subpoenas marked an escalation of the battle surrounding the lawsuit and aim to put the law firms’ leaders under the same kind of pressure that the bar association’s subpoena put on Mr. Epshteyn,” the Times reported, based on conversations with people familiar with the matter.