Nine Big Law firms surrendered to DJT's illegal demands. No character. No honor. No respect for the Rule of Law. Corporate apologists. We pity the feculent fools. From The New York Times:
THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Nine Law Firms Surrendered. Four Law Firms Won.
The four law firms that last year chose to fight President Trump’s illegal intimidation campaign have won vindication. Federal judges had already struck down Mr. Trump’s executive orders trying to punish the firms for representing or employing people he considered to be his political enemies. On Monday, the Trump administration abandoned its appeals of those rulings, accepting defeat.
The victories of the four firms — Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale — are a triumph for justice and democracy. The executive orders that Mr. Trump signed early in his second term were based on the lie that the firms had done something wrong. In fact, their lawyers were merely doing their jobs. They happened to represent Democrats and liberal groups or participated in prior investigations of him. And his would-be punishments of the firms had the potential to damage them badly. The executive orders barred the firms’ lawyers from entering federal buildings and meeting with federal officials, activities that are a necessary part of many legal cases.
The larger goal of the executive orders was chilling. The president attacked a bedrock principle of the law, which is that everybody deserves legal representation. He sought to frighten lawyers from representing people who had the temerity to criticize him. By extension, he sought to frighten any Americans who might criticize him.
Fighting the executive orders took courage, and the four firms deserve praise and gratitude for standing up to the president. They all risked losing clients and even having their firms collapse. Nine other firms folded and struck deals intended to mollify the president. The deals included promises to perform millions of dollars of pro bono work on behalf of Trump-friendly clients.
These nine firms all failed a high-stakes character test. Their leaders faced a choice between submitting to a bully and doing the right thing. The firms are not household names to most Americans, but it is worth listing them here. We hope that clients looking for fearless attorneys and law students deciding where to work will remember which elite firms were unwilling to fight back. Meekness is not a quality most people seek in a lawyer.
The first firm to fold was Paul Weiss, whose chairman at the time, Brad Karp, undertook what Ruth Marcus of The New Yorker described as a “desperate” campaign to reach a deal with Mr. Trump. The other eight firms were A&O Shearman; Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft; Kirkland & Ellis; Latham & Watkins; Milbank; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Skadden Arps; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
Core to their error was the misplaced belief that capitulation might be unsavory but that it was the most promising strategy. Instead, it was doomed from the start.
Their deals with Mr. Trump included no binding promises from him or his administration. At any point, he could threaten the firms again and demand more concessions. Media organizations, including ABC News and the parent company of CBS News, that responded to his lawsuits by agreeing to settlements that are de facto payoffs made a similar mistake. So did the European Union and individual countries that made concessions to soften his threatened tariffs.
The four law firms that fought the White House read the situation correctly. They insisted on due process and relied on judges to protect their rights under the Constitution. The American legal system depends on due process. Nobody, not even the president, should be able simply to assert that a person or organization has behaved wrongly and then exact a punishment for that behavior.
Law firms that came to the defense of the four and represented them in court also deserve recognition, including Clement & Murphy; Cooley; Munger Tolles & Olson; and Williams & Connolly. So do corporate clients that stood by the firms, such as Microsoft, which moved some business from Simpson Thacher, one of the nine firms that surrendered, to Jenner & Block, one of the four that fought.
These moves highlight the importance of solidarity when a democracy is under threat. Those who are not themselves targets of government intimidation can make a difference by defending those who are. Every time somebody stands on principle, it becomes easier for others to do the same. Sure enough, hundreds of other law firms eventually signed legal briefs supporting the four firms.
Mr. Trump’s assaults on American democracy are much broaderthan his executive orders against law firms, of course. He has bypassed Congress when going to war. He has defied judges’ orders on immigration policy. He glories in using the office of the presidency to enrich himself. He declares national emergencies on false pretenses. He lies about voter fraud and tries to change election rules to benefit himself.
When he takes these steps, he can sometimes seem omnipotent. He can, however, be restrained. The Supreme Court last month overturned his illegal tariffs. Lower courts have repeatedly blocked other Trump policies. Enough Republican legislators in Indiana, Kansas and Nebraska rejected his gerrymandering demands that the plans have stalled. Now the four law firms that fought his executive orders have forced him to retreat.
Democracy in this country remains under threat from Mr. Trump. But it has better than a fighting chance so long as Americans are willing to fight.
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The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
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