Trump Gets Law Firm He Targeted With Executive Order to Do Free Work for Him
Donald Trump announced Thursday that he was rescinding his executive order against a law firm that sued alleged Jan. 6 rioters, but with several catches, among them that the firm must do $40 million of free work for the administration.
Last Friday, Trump's order rescinded federal government contracts held by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The order cited a pro bono suit against suspected Jan. 6 rioters and the re-hiring of Mark Pomerantz, who worked in the Manhattan's district attorney's office during its investigation of Trump, as cause for presidential action. The order also accused the Manhattan firm of race and gender discrimination.
In addition to revoking contracts, Trump ordered the same for firm members' active security clearances.
It was amid those drastic measures that Trump announced that he was able to extract considerable value from the firm in exchange for dropping the order.
In his statement on Truth Social, Trump said in part that the firm 'will take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints of our society, whether 'conservative' or 'liberal.''
He continued that it will 'not adopt, use, or pursue any DEI policies,' and, most stunningly, 'will dedicate the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services over the course of President Trump's term to support the Administration's initiatives, including: assisting our Nation's veterans, fairness in the Justice System, the President's Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, and other mutually agreed projects.'
Earlier this month, Perkins Coie, another firm in Trump's crosshairs via executive order, sued the administration, claiming the presidential act was 'an affront to the Constitution and our adversarial system of justice.'
'Its plain purpose is to bully those who advocate points of view that the president perceives as adverse to the views of his administration, whether those views are presented on behalf of paying or pro bono clients,' the suit stated. 'Perkins Coie cannot allow its clients to be bullied.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
'The lamest excuse I've ever heard': Trump lawyer falls flat at Senate Judiciary hearing
Senator Adam Schiff talks with Jen Psaki about the Senate Judiciary Hearing for Emil Bove, Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer, who Trump wants to appoint to a federal judgeship despite new information from a whistleblower that Bove was open to ignoring court orders in favor of Trump anti-immigrant mission.
Time Magazine
33 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
How Gay Marriage Is Under Threat in the Trump Era
What a difference a few months make. Just before Donald Trump returned to office in January, gay marriage was thought to be settled law in the United States. After all, it was only 10 years ago that the U.S. Supreme Court declared gay marriage a constitutionally-protected right with its landmark decision on Obergefell v. Hodges. But a flurry of executive orders targeting the LGBTQ community casts a big shadow over the future of gay marriage. On Jan. 25, his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order that declared: 'It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.' Soon after, Trump blocked trans women from participating in female sports and the Pentagon banned trans people from serving openly in the military. U.S. park services then deleted LGBTQ references from national landmarks such as Philadelphia's Independence Hall, the site of some of the earliest gay rights protests. The Trump Administration followed that by canceling $800 million in grants that research LGBTQ health and shutting down a national suicide hotline catered to LGBTQ youth. But how endangered is gay marriage under Trump? Gay marriage activists and their allies take comfort in the high support that gay marriage enjoys among the American public. According to a Gallup poll from May, more than two in three Americans support it, and nearly as many say gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable. Gallup also noted that a majority of Americans have backed gay marriage since the early 2010s. It is a testament to these sentiments that the U.S. Congress enacted the Respect for Marriage Act (RMFA) in 2022 with broad bipartisan support. This law recognizes the legality of gay marriage for federal purposes, such as allowing same-sex couples to file a joint tax return. It also requires that states accept same-sex marriage licenses issued by another state. But neither these protections nor the polls should create a sense of complacency. Support for gay marriage among Americans is decreasing not increasing. The 69% support that gay marriage garnered in May is below the 71% recorded in 2022 and 2023. A majority of Republicans also once again oppose gay marriage, with support dropping 14 points since 2022. Contrary to public perception, the RMFA did not codify Obergefell into law. RMFA primarily allows for federal recognition of gay marriage, by repealing the odious Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which was enacted in 1996 at the peak of the moral panic over gay marriage orchestrated by the Christian right. DOMA prohibited federal recognition of gay marriage even if the marriage was conducted in a state that had legalized it. Consequently, if Obergefell were to be nullified, the RMFA will protect federal recognition of gay marriage. But it will not prevent the reactivation of dozens of gay marriage bans erected across the U.S. prior to 2015, most of which are still in the books. Nor will the RMFA prevent states from erecting new legal barriers. In fact, the legislation exempts nonprofit religious organizations from providing 'any services, facilities, or goods for the solemnization or celebration of marriage.' All of this explains why the RMFA got a chilly reception among gay rights activists. Until recently moribund, the anti-gay marriage movement is also showing signs of life. It has been re-invigorated by Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended 50 years of legalized abortion in America. In comments that delighted gay marriage foes and alarmed gay marriage activists, Justice Clarence Thomas said the Court should also 'reconsider' past rulings on same-sex marriage and contraception. Just this month, the annual conference of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., called for an end to gay marriage. The move echoes ongoing efforts by half a dozen Republican-controlled states to undermine gay marriage. Yet other states are fighting back. Democratic legislators in Virginia and Oregon are working to repeal laws and constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage that could in theory be resuscitated should Obergefell be overturned. Meanwhile, the revived debate about gay marriage offers an opportunity to reframe the issue. During the 1990s, gay marriage activists embraced the view that it was a civil rights matter, noting some 1,000 marriage benefits only available to straight couples. But this framing backfired by coming across as legalistic and materialistic. After several setbacks, especially California's Proposition 8 in 2008, gay activists pitched a new framing of 'love and commitment.' While this narrative boosted support for gay marriage, its modesty meant that a big opportunity was missed to make a more transformative impact on societal attitudes toward LGBTQ people. Going forward, gay activists should frame gay marriage as something morally sound and intrinsically good. For one thing, the apocalyptic predictions that social conservatives made about gay marriage—from the advent of another Civil War to the disappearance of straight children to the end of marriage itself—never came to pass. There is also now a wealth of data that highlights the benefits of gay marriage for the gay community and society as a whole. In the 10 years since Obergefell became the law of the land, it is clear that gay marriage has been good for the American gay community, and perhaps even better for America at large. It would be a national shame and a massive setback for LGBTQ equality were it to be revoked.
Fox News
34 minutes ago
- Fox News
Senate GOP eyes Medicaid sweetener to save Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'
The Medicaid debate among Senate Republicans continues to rage on, but a new proposal geared toward sating concerns over the survivability of rural hospitals could help to close the lingering fissures within the conference. Senate Republicans are sprinting to finish their work on President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill," which is filled with key priorities like making his first-term tax cuts permanent, funding his immigration and border security agenda, and rooting out waste, fraud and abuse across a variety of programs. But lawmakers are still at odds over changes made in the Senate's version of the bill to the Medicaid provider tax rate and the effects that it could have on rural hospitals, threatening to derail the legislation near the finish line. A proposal making the rounds from the Senate Finance Committee obtained by Fox News Digital would create a separate stabilization fund that would go toward aiding and upgrading rural healthcare. The committee's proposal would allocate $3 billion annually to states that apply to the program over the next five fiscal years. But that amount is too low for some senators and far too much for others. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has been working on a similar proposal but would prefer a much higher fund of $100 billion. That number is unlikely to pass muster with her colleagues and still isn't high enough for her. "I don't think that solves the entire problem," she said. "The Senate cuts in Medicaid are far deeper than the House cuts and I think that's problematic as well." Collins would prefer a return to the House GOP's proposed changes to the provider tax rate, rather than the Senate's harsher crackdown. The Senate changes to the provider tax rate hit close to home for Collins, whose state's rural hospitals are already in jeopardy because the state of Maine failed to advance its budget in time, leaving roughly $400 million in Medicaid funding that would have gone to rural hospitals in limbo. "Obviously any money is helpful. But no, it is not adequate," she said. Indeed, the changes to the Medicaid provider tax rate, which were a stark departure from the House GOP's version of the bill, angered the Republicans who have warned not to make revisions to the health care program that could shut down rural hospitals and boot working Americans from their benefits. The Senate Finance Committee went further than the House's freeze of the provider tax rate, or the amount that state Medicaid programs pay to healthcare providers on behalf of Medicaid beneficiaries, for non-Affordable Care Act expansion states and included a provision that lowers the rate in expansion states annually until it hits 3.5%. However, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and some Senate Republicans have argued that the provider tax rate is a scam rife with fraud that actually harms rural hospitals more than it helps. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., was in the same camp, and has argued that the rate should be nixed completely. He has similarly pushed for a separate fund but wasn't keen on the cost of the current proposal. "I don't know that we need $15 billion," he said. "But this needs to be run by CMS." And others wanted to see more money injected into a stabilization fund. "I think $5 billion a year would more than make them whole," Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said. He contended that, as the only lawmaker who has run a rural hospital, there are only roughly 12 million people on Medicaid in rural America, and that lawmakers should "tighten things up" when it comes to funding the health care program. He said that being on Medicaid was "not the same as having healthcare," and added that "at best, two thirds of doctors accept Medicaid, and even many of the specialists, when they say they do, they won't give you an appointment for six months or a year." "Medicaid is not the solution," he said. "It's the most broken federal system up here."
