Dem
47
GOP
53
It is widely believed that when you make a deal with the Mafia, they honor it. If a Mafia figure says to someone: "Nice house you got there, it would be a pity if it burned down" and that someone asks how much fire insurance costs and pays the requested amount, the house is not burned down, and the Mafia guy doesn't come around next week with a new fire insurance quote. Donald Trump is clearly not a Mafia figure because he doesn't work that way.
In the past 2 weeks, Trump has extorted nine white-shoe law firms into doing a billion dollars of pro bono work for veterans and conservative causes. They agreed. Now Trump is coming back for the next round. He wants more—for example, justifying what the DOGEys are doing, or maybe even helping the DoJ. This is not what they understood they were signing up for.
It is not even clear if there are written agreements signed by the law firms, and if so, what is in them. Are there even any limits to what he can do with them? Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale, said of the firms: "They thought they made one-shot deals which they would fulfill. But the administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude."
One lawyer involved in the deals said that Trump's additional demands could lead to the deals unraveling. If the firms refuse to accept new requirements, Trump could issue new XOs barring them from courtrooms, and more. At that point, all the firms might get together and sue the administration. If nothing was written down, Trump will have a hard time convincing judges and the Supreme Court that they had agreed to an open-ended deal to do whatever he wants whenever he wants it.
In addition to fighting with Trump, many of the firms have an internal problem. Many of the younger associates disagree strongly with management and could leave their high-pressure-but-lucrative jobs for less-lucrative-but-lower-pressure jobs elsewhere. The associates do much of the actual work, under supervision of a partner. But if enough of the worker bees depart, leaving only manager bees, the firm won't be able to function. So the most senior partners have to consider an internal revolt as a possibility as well. They are caught between what Trump demands and what their own employees want. (V)