WASHINGTON — Key Democrats sent scathing letters to five prominent law firms demanding details on the lucrative deals they cut with President Donald Trump to avoid being attacked by him, accusing them of being “complicit” in his efforts to break laws.
“We write today regarding President Trump’s April 11, 2025, announcement that Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP (“Cadwalader”) reached an agreement with President Trump in order to avoid executive orders targeted at your firm,” reads a letter to one of these firms, from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).
“Your capitulation puts you in the distasteful company of several other large law firms who have decided to permit President Trump to suppress their speech and dictate who they can and cannot take as clients in blatant violation of the rights guaranteed to all Americans by the First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution,” they said.
“Your agreement makes you complicit in efforts to undermine the rule of law and to turn private attorneys into President Trump’s personal law firm, ready to do whatever he decides,” they continue. “The American people and Congress deserve transparency with respect to the President’s ongoing assault on constitutional rights and the rule of law.”
Cadwalader is one of nine top law firms that have collectively agreed to provide Trump with nearly $1 billion in free legal services, in exchange for the president not abusing his power to punish them by stripping them of federal contracts or security clearances for employees. Trump announced his deals with five of these firms earlier this month.
Raskin and Blumenthal said Tuesday that they wrote to five of these firms last Friday, demanding details relating to who facilitated the deals they cut with Trump and what terms they agreed to. They give the firms until April 28 to provide responses to the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Raskin and Blumenthal are the top Democrats on these committees, respectively.
The law firms who received this letter are Cadwalader, A&O Shearman, Latham & Watkins LLP, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and Kirkland & Ellis LLP. To date, they have not publicly commented on their deals with the White House.
Here’s a copy of the letter to Cadwalader:
None of the five firms that received Democrats’ letter has actually been targeted by Trump’s executive actions. They are preemptively caving to his demands out of fear that he could come after them ― and hurt their bottom lines ― in the same way he’s been seeking retribution against other law firms that he views as his political enemies.
In February, Trump announced he was suspending security clearances for certain lawyers at Covington & Burling LLP, in addition to terminating the firm’s federal contracts. He tied his actions to the fact that this firm previously provided free legal counsel to former special counsel Jack Smith, who brought criminal charges against Trump in his first term.
Trump has since suspended security clearances, terminated federal contracts, banned from entering federal buildings or banned hiring employees from Perkins Coie LLP, which he attacked over its diversity, equity and inclusion policies; from the Paul Weiss law firm, which brought legal actions against Jan. 6 defendants; from Jenner & Block, which he attacked for hiring former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann after he played a role in the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation; and from WilmerHale, as punishment for its connections to former special counsel Robert Mueller, who oversaw the 2016 Trump-Russia investigation.
In their letters, Blumenthal and Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, essentially tell the law firms they know better to not do what they’re doing. Trump’s actions clearly violate the First Amendment by trying to penalize lawyers for the causes and clients they represent, they said, and even former President John Adams, who was also an attorney, defended British soldiers accused of participating in the Boston Massacre.
“Like so many attorneys since then, Adams did not shrink from taking on unpopular clients and defending them against the government’s prosecution because he ‘firmly believed that everyone had the right to a lawyer and a fair trial, so he willingly agreed to represent the soldiers even if it meant risking his reputation,’” they said.
“As far as we can tell from public reports, these executive orders have turned into an illegal shakedown of the legal profession.”