Trump’s Law Firm Deals Aren’t Working Out How He Hoped

President Donald Trump may have thought he was getting a legal war chest by threatening several major law firms—but it seems the famed dealmaker didn’t know exactly what he was signing on to.

In a series of letters to Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Richard Blumenthal obtained by The Bulwark, several major law firms that cut deals with the Trump administration provided details on the terms of their agreements—and it’s looking like the president may have gotten the short end of the stick.

While the firms had reportedly agreed to provide millions of dollars of pro bono work for specific causes, many asserted that they had total authority over the selection of their clients.

Allen Ovary Shearman Sterling LLP wrote that its agreement to provide $125 million in pro bono work “does not call for, or permit, the administration or any other person or entity to determine what clients and matters the Firm takes on, whether they be pro bono matters or otherwise.” The firm said it had simply agreed to provide free legal services across “three specified areas,” including assisting veterans, ensuring fairness in the justice system, and combating antisemitism.

The Bulwark reported that other firms’ deals had similar stakes. Latham & Watkins wrote that it “maintains its complete independence as to the clients and matters the firm takes on,” while Simpson Thacher & Bartlett wrote that their agreement with the government did not “dictate or restrict what pro bono matters we will take on moving forward.” Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft wrote that they “have not and will not restrict our pro bono activities or the positions we take on behalf of those clients.”

Nine law firms have signed deals with the president, promising nearly $1 billion in pro bono work.

Meanwhile, Trump has projected a far grander view of what he could call on firms to do for him. The president claimed that the major law firms who struck deals stood at the ready to help him make deals with foreign countries to alleviate the weight of his sweeping reciprocal tariffs. He also floated the idea of using his battalion of attorneys to help the coal industry. In the White House, discussions had begun about deploying lawyers at DOGE and the DOJ, The New York Times reported last month.

Other firms seem to be using a different legalese to prevent themselves from being strong-armed by Trump. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP executive partner Jeremy London said that the firm had agreed to provide $100 million in pro bono work that “the president and Skadden both support,” which could potentially provide an out should the firm be remanded to work on a specific cause.

Last month, Raskin and Blumenthal penned letters to five major law firms they accused of being “complicit in efforts to undermine the rule of law” and demanded information on the deals.

A group of Democratic lawmakers sent another series of letters to law firms last month, warning that the Trump administration’s scheme to use “coercive and illegal measures” to blackmail firms could potentially violate federal laws against bribery, defrauding the public, and even racketeering.

If the firms have truly maintained authority over selecting which clients they represent, and which matters they take up, then some of these concerns may be moot. However, the lawmakers raised the possibility that by signing a deal with Trump, the firms were opening themselves up to extortion, asking what each firm planned to do to “ensure that the administration will not be able to require more from the firm beyond the provisions currently in place?”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stumbled and deflected when asked a simple, direct question about tariffs at a congressional hearing on Tuesday.

“Who pays tariffs, Mr. Secretary?” asked Representative Mark Pocan.

Bessent began to ramble on indirectly, frustrating Pocan. “Who pays tariffs? Mr. Secretary, please, the question is very simply, Who pays tariffs? Mr. Chairman, I’d like him to answer that question; he wants to answer other questions.”

Bessent replied shakily. “Well, Congressman, if the congressman, if the exporters, the … uh, dislike tariffs so much, why wouldn’t they? If, I think what you’re trying to get me to say—”

“Did you remember the question? I’m not sure you did,” Pocan said. “Who pays tariffs?”

“It’s a very complicated question.”

“Reclaiming my time. People pay tariffs, right?”

“No, no, no,” Bessent muttered, while Pocan reclaimed his time.

“You clearly aren’t gonna answer, I’m not gonna waste my time having you go ‘uh uh uh uh.’”

The Trump administration is doing everything in its power to gaslight Americans into thinking that the tariffs will be positive; that we’ll just have some short-term discomfort before everything is cheap and made in America again. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Donald Trump’s braggadocio just upended one of his executive orders.

U.S. Judge Beryl Howell issued a permanent injunction against the president Friday night, ruling that his executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie was not only unconstitutional but amounted to an “unprecedented attack” on the pillars of the judicial system.

“No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit targeting a prominent law firm with adverse actions to be executed by all Executive branch agencies but, in purpose and effect, this action draws from a playbook as old as Shakespeare, who penned the phrase: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers,’” Howell wrote in a scathing 102-page opinion.

Trump signed an executive order against Perkins Coie in March, revoking the firm’s security clearances and their access to government buildings, and nixing government contracts with the firm, in part because they represented Hillary Clinton during her 2016 campaign.

But Howell dismantled the order, based on Trump’s own claims about forcing other law firms into submission. During an April 8 speech cited in Howell’s ruling, Trump peacocked that “lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump.”

“$100 million, another $100 million, for damages that they’ve done,” Trump said at the time. But they give you $100 million, and then they announce, ‘We have done nothing wrong.’ And I agree, they’ve done nothing wrong. But what the hell, they’ve given me a lot of money considering they’ve done nothing wrong.”

Also at fault was deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, whose comments about another law firm—Susman Godfrey—included flaunting that the administration had effectively finagled upward of a billion dollars in “free legal work” thanks to the executive branch’s pressure campaign.

Trump’s and Miller’s comments effectively proved that the president had singled firms out for “retribution” based on whether they were willing to cut a deal with the White House.

Perkins Coie said in a statement that the decision “affirms core constitutional freedoms all Americans hold dear, including free speech, due process, and the right to select counsel without the fear of retribution.”

It is unclear if the Trump administration plans to appeal the ruling.

U.S. spy agencies do not believe that the Venezuelan government has authority over the Tren de Aragua gang—a development that directly contradicts Trump’s justification for his illegal, extrajudicial deportations of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.

“While Venezuela’s permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” a memo from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence read, according to The New York Times.

Trump has been claiming the exact opposite since he invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in March to summarily round up Venezuelan immigrants and deport them without basic due process.

Trump first invoked the wartime powers act in March, asserting that “this is a time of war. Because Biden allowed millions of people, many of them criminals, many of them at the highest level.… Other nations emptied their jails into the United States, it’s an invasion. These are criminals, many many criminals … murderers, drug dealers at the highest level, drug lords. People from mental institutions. That’s an invasion.” He also said Tren de Aragua gang members were committing crimes in the United States “at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela.”

The memo directly delegitimizes his argument, further confirming that Trump is operating well outside the bounds of his executive powers.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is still advocating for the creation of a disease registry that tracks people diagnosed with autism.

During an appearance Monday night on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle, Kennedy tried to explain why the government would need to collate citizens’ private medical records into a massive database—a plan that was announced last month by the National Institutes of Health, and then reportedly abandoned two days later after severe backlash.

“One in every 31 kids today. In California, which has the best database, it’s one in every 20 children, one in every 12.5 boys,” Kennedy claimed.

“This is an existential disease,” Kennedy continued. “Every other disease like this has a registry so that—and its voluntary—public health officials can monitor the numbers. It’s not private information, it’s not information that is gonna go out to other agencies, it’s a voluntary system where your privacy is protected. Just a system for keeping track of a disease that is now becoming debilitating to the American public.”

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published last month found that one in 31 children aged 8 years old has been identified with autism spectrum disorder. Days before that report had come out, Donald Trump was already spouting those exact numbers before claiming that autism could potentially be caused by vaccines.

While the CDC has documented an increase in diagnoses from 2000, when only one in 150 children born in 1992 was diagnosed with autism, experts have attributed some of the rise in diagnoses to a widening definition of autism spectrum disorder, which encapsulates a broader range of symptoms, as well as people being more aware of and willing to get diagnostic testing, according to ABC News.

Under Kennedy’s guidance, the CDC has launched a study on connections between vaccines and autism, despite extensive research debunking the conspiracy theory.

Pete Hegseth canceled military aid flights to Ukraine just a week into Trump’s second term without the president even knowing, according to Reuters.

The ignominious defense secretary called off 11 Ukraine-bound planes carrying artillery, shells, and other weapons. Trump was completely unaware that Hegseth had made the call, as the TRANSCOM records simply show a verbal order from “SECDEF”—the secretary of defense—stopping aid flights to Ukraine until February 5.

The order initially sparked mass confusion within the administration, as national security officials in the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department couldn’t figure out who ordered the halt in flights.

This is yet another example of the chaos and lack of cohesion that Hegseth has brought to the Pentagon from day one. But the administration is treating the communication failure like business as usual.

“Negotiating an end to the Russia-Ukraine War has been a complex and fluid situation. We are not going to detail every conversation among top administration officials throughout the process,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Reuters. “The bottom line is the war is much closer to an end today than it was when President Trump took office.”

The move also aligns with the growing anti–European Union, anti-Ukraine, pro-isolationist views that Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance hold, as evident in their infamous Signalgate group chat messages.

“This is consistent with the administration’s policy to move fast, break things, and sort it out later,” said retired Marine and defense expert Mark Cancian. “That is their managing philosophy.”

This is one of multiple reports on the internal disarray at Hegeth’s Defense Department.

“Abundance for me but not for thee” seems to be Donald Trump’s new motto.

The president’s argument that children should just have fewer dolls rattled the nation last week. Trump’s tariffs proposals—which were discovered and confirmed by the White House to be based on bad math—have sent markets tumbling and pushed the U.S. economy closer toward a recession. The boss of the biggest shipping port in the country told AFP News Agency that American consumers can expect “less choice and higher prices” once current inventory runs out, which he predicted would occur within the next five to seven weeks.

In the face of rising costs and a slowing job market, Trump’s solution is just as simple as it is un-American: Buy less.

“I don’t think a young lady, a 10-year-old girl, 9-year-old girl, 15-year-old girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls. She can be very happy with two or three or four or five,” Trump reiterated to reporters aboard Air Force One Sunday.

But Trump—whose net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $5.1 billion—wouldn’t know the first thing about living a modest lifestyle. His own children have been photographed in the lap of luxury, playing with lavish toys backdropped by the ornate interiors of his New York City penthouse, as the internet was quick to point out.

Some of Barron Trump’s childhood toys included a customized mini Mercedes convertible featuring a “BARRON” license plate, several life-size stuffed animals, and famously, a Louis Vuitton “soot-case” that reportedly now retails for nearly $10,000. They resided in an entire floor of Trump’s apartment, which Barron apparently had all to himself, Melania told Entertainment Tonight in 2010.

Other images of Trump’s brood include photos of Melania holding a baby Barron in front of golden doors, marble floors, and an elaborate pram.

President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have proved fatal for seven people who were detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, as part of the president’s massive deportation efforts.

Of the seven immigrants who have died in ICE custody over the past three months, the agency has only published reports on three of the deaths, which were all reviewed by the Spanish newspaper El Paīs.

According to the outlet, all three individuals arrived in detention in good condition, and saw their health rapidly decline.

Makysm Chernyak, a 44 year-old Ukrainian man, was arrested in January on assault charges and transferred to ICE detention in Miami where he was found to be totally healthy, with the exception of an elevated heart rate. For a week in mid-February he was in and out of the clinic, after reporting nasal congestion and a cough. On February 18, he was found vomiting and trembling in his cell, and while awaiting transfer to the hospital he suffered six seizures, and vomited blood. Doctors shortly discovered he’d had a hemorrhagic stroke and was determined to be brain dead. He was declared dead two days later.

Marie Blaise, a 44 year-old Haitian woman was detained on February 12 in the U.S. Virgin Islands when she tried to board a flight to North Carolina without a valid immigration visa. Another woman detained in Deerfield Beach detention center told the Miami Herald that Blaise began to complain of chest pains on April 25. She was given some pills and told to rest, but hours later she awoke screaming in pain. Later that night she was announced dead, and her cause of death is still under investigation, according to El Paīs.

Last week, Florida Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, the only Haitian American member of Congress, slammed ICE over Blaise’s death. “Marie had been complaining about chest pain for hours,” she said on the House floor. “They gave her some pills and told her to go lie down. Unfortunately, Marie never woke up.”

ICE is required to report on all in-custody deaths within 90 days, but Cherfilus-McCormick called for a “full, independent investigation” into Blaise’s death. Chernyak and Blaise are two of three immigrants who died in detention in Florida. The other was Genry Ruiz Guillén, a 29-year-old Honduran detained at the Krome center in Florida who died on January 23. Others died in custody in Texas, Arizona, Puerto Rico, and Missouri.

In a statement, ICE insisted that it was providing proper care to detainees. “All people in ICE custody receive medical, dental and mental health screening and 24-hour emergency care at each detention facility,” it said.

A 2024 report from the American Civil Liberties Union found that 95 percent of deaths at ICE-operated facilities between 2017 and 2021 could have been prevented “if appropriate medical care had been provided.” In a whopping 88 percent of the deaths reviewed as part of the report, medical staff at the ICE detention centers had “made incorrect, inappropriate, or incomplete diagnoses.”

President Donald Trump just gave a completely incoherent explanation for his impromptu plan to reopen Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay.

“How will you use it? How did you come up with the idea?” a reporter asked the president on Monday.

“Well, I guess I was supposed to be a moviemaker. We’re talking—we started with the moviemaking, and it will end,” Trump replied. “It represents something very strong, very powerful, in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is, I would say, the ultimate, right? Alcatraz, Sing Sing, and Alcatraz, the movies.

“But uh, it’s right now a museum, believe it or not. Lotta people go there. It housed the most violent criminals in the world, and nobody ever escaped. One person almost got there, but they, as you know the story, they found his clothing rather badly ripped up, and uh, it was a lot of shark bites, a lot of problems. Nobody’s ever escaped from Alcatraz, and just represented something strong having to do with law and order; we need law and order in this country.”

Trump said he hoped to “bring [Alcatraz] back in large form, add a lot.”

“It sort of represents something that’s both horrible and beautiful and strong and miserable, weak,” he added. “It’s got a lot of qualities that are interesting.”

Despite his surplus of adjectives, Trump’s response didn’t quite answer the question.

Some have suggested that Trump was inspired by Escape From Alcatraz, the 1979 film that aired on South Florida’s WLRN on Saturday night (Trump was staying in Palm Beach). Shortly after announcing plans to reopen Alcatraz, Trump also posted on Truth Social that he was planning to place tariffs on foreign-made movies.

This is certainly not the first time the president has had trouble answering questions. Just last week, when asked about his administration’s punitive measures against Harvard University, Trump began ranting about fictional riots of Trump supporters in Harlem.

The White House’s social media post on Friday night depicting Donald Trump as the pope was apparently “just a little fun,” according to the president.

“Actually, my wife thought it was cute,” Trump told reporters at the White House, referring to a seemingly AI-generated image in which he appears dressed in white papal attire. “Actually, I would not be able to be married, though. That wouldn’t be allowed. To the best of my knowledge, popes aren’t getting married. Not that we know of, no.”

Still, personally acknowledging that he and his wife witnessed and shared the bizarre and offensive image wasn’t enough to deem the image real.

“I think it’s the fake news media, you know,” Trump said. “They’re fakers.”

Trump also insisted that Catholics “loved it” and chalked up critiques of the stunt to the “fake news.” But that also appears to not be based in reality.

“There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President,” posted the official account for the New York State Catholic Conference on X. “We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.”

Former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi also had rough news for Trump, writing in Italian that the image “offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the global right enjoys being a clown.”

Even New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan—a supposed Trump ally, who was named a member of the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission Thursday—said that the picture “wasn’t good.”

When asked by a reporter if leveraging the official White House account to share “memes” was “diminishing” the value of the channel, Trump responded that the press should give him “a break.”

“Somebody did it in fun. It’s fine. Hate to have a little fun, don’t you?” poked Trump.

It’s not the first time the self-purported Christian has made light of the religion’s principles. As a way to line his pockets last year, the notorious scammer launched a $60 Bible co-promoted alongside “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood.

And in the midst of his bank fraud trial in 2024, the famed adulterer compared himself to Jesus, claiming that someone had sent him a note likening his legal comeuppance for decades of financial abuse to Christ’s persecution.

And just last week, Trump actually said he’d “like to be pope.”

“That would be my number one choice,” Trump told reporters.