Trump’s Law Firm Deals Are Already Falling Apart 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 combatting 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.”
wow..this is..hmm...disturbing Sen. Durbin wants DOJ to probe anonymous pizza deliveries to judges Sen. Dick Durbin (Illinois) asked Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel in a letter for a full accounting of how many anonymous or pseudonymous deliveries have been made to judges or their families since the beginning of the Trump administration, including the number of judges affected and the districts or circuits where the judges serve. Many of the pizzas reportedly showed up at the homes of judges presiding over cases the administration was defending. Some were made in the name of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas’s son, Daniel Anderl, who was fatally shot in 2020 by an attorney who posed as a delivery person, Salas and trial attorney Paul R. Kiesel wrote last month. Durbin asked Bondi and Patel to report back to him by May 20 on whether they had identified suspects, initiated prosecutions, or found evidence that the deliveries were coordinated. He also asked them to describe what steps their agencies have taken to protect judges and their families. The deliveries began around late February, as government lawyers tried to fend off a growing list of legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s policies, and Trump and his allies lobbed near-daily attacks on judges whose rulings they disliked.
More Trump Administration winning at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and the SCOTUS: Supreme Court Issues Ruling on Trump's Transgender Military Ban Rogue federal district court judges in process of being overruled in advance of the SCOTUS backing up the DC Circuit Court of Appeals 3 rules as decided last Saturday. This time the Trump Administration Ban on transgenders serving in the military have had the lower courts stayed and the executive order upheld: The Supreme Court on Tuesday gave the Trump administration another victory as it upheld its ban on transgender people serving in the military. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on January 27 prohibiting trans-identified individuals from serving in the US military. The order argued that there were serious concerns over unit cohesion, mental and physical readiness, and the impact on military efficacy. The Supreme Court’s order places a stay on a preliminary injunction that a lower court imposed against the policy. It further notes that Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the ruling. The stay will remain in effect until the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the White House’s appeal of the lower court’s order.
