The Trump administration is reigniting its feud with top law firms it cut deals with just over a year ago.
The Justice Department has issued subpoenas to nine law firms that the administration has, to this point, largely left alone after they struck agreements to provide nearly $1 billion in free legal work, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and “psychiatrist,” Boris Epshteyn, led the charge in organizing deals with the top firms last year, following Trump’s executive orders aimed at dismantling their efficacy.
Epshteyn, who is not a government employee, negotiated the deals with firms willing to comply with Trump’s demands, despite the president’s executive orders being widely panned as illegal.
The subpoenas ask for all communications the firms shared with Epshteyn and “any communications concerning the implementation, enforcement, or monitoring of” their agreements with the White House, the Times reported, citing a copy of one subpoena it obtained.
The DOJ is also reportedly seeking to depose a top leader from each firm in the near future.
Neither the White House nor the DOJ immediately returned the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
The escalation follows a lawsuit against the administration filed by the American Bar Association, which said Trump’s targeting of law firms he does not like “is unprecedented and uniquely dangerous to the rule of law.”
As part of the suit, the association asked a federal judge to compel the White House to produce any communications between itself, Epshteyn, and the Trump ally Steve Bannon.
The DOJ is now demanding the same information from the firms while it awaits a federal judge’s ruling on whether to void the association’s requests.
People familiar with the matter told the Times that the DOJ’s subpoenas are meant to pressure the firms’ leaders in the same way the association’s lawsuit pressured Epshteyn.
Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan detailed in their new book Regime Change that Epshteyn was seen as a problem by the incoming White House counsel, David Warrington.
“Epshteyn’s conduct must be stopped, and his employment and proximity to President Trump should be terminated,” Warrington wrote. “Otherwise, his conduct will likely lead to, at best, a scandal involving the incoming Trump administration, and at worst could lead to criminal indictments.”
Four of the firms that fought back against Trump’s order in court—Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey—scored a major victory when a federal judge deemed the president’s actions unconstitutional. In March, the DOJ abandoned its appeal of the decision, seemingly putting the issue to rest.
Now, the department seeks to question leaders from the four firms and to depose leaders from other firms that struck deals with the administration.
