How Trump Is Scaring Big Law Firms Into Submission
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From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. After engaging in a campaign of retribution against his enemies within the federal government, President Trump is now turning to those outside of it. Today. my colleague Mike Schmidt, on what that retribution has looked like for a single law firm and the impact that it's had on the entire legal profession. It's Tuesday, March 18th.
Mike, welcome back to the studio. Thank you for being here. It's good to be back. I want to give a little bit of context for this conversation Before Trump was elected, The Daily ran a series of episodes about what a second Trump term might look like on a range of fronts. And you guided us through how Trump might use the powers of the federal government to turn his threats of retribution into action. And your big finding was that we didn't have to look far to try to understand what retribution might look like in practice because Trump had already done it in his first term more than we had actually realized. And you documented that. And you said that it would only escalate if he were given a second term. And I think it's fair to say, so far, that you were right. Michael telling me I'm right.
You were right. Frame it. Yeah, look, I was concentrated on how he was going to use the criminal powers of the Justice Department to go after his enemies. But he has actually been more creative and audacious and faster, frankly, than I ever thought he'd be. At retribution. Correct. And what in your mind is the best example of this unexpected, inventive retribution? The way that he has targeted in the past week or so a law firm called Perkins Coie. With the stroke of his pen, he was able to essentially cripple the firm's ability to represent its clients. and create an existential threat for it that could put it out of business. But in doing that, Trump has done something even bigger and greater. He has fundamentally undermined the American legal system.
A very bold statement. So let's tell the story of what happened to this law firm from the beginning. Tell us about Perkins Coie and how it arrives at this existential crisis at the hands of the president. In 2016, Hillary Clinton's campaign hired Perkins Coie to be its chief outside law firm. In many ways, this made sense because Perkins Coie had one of the biggest, most robust practices that focused on representing Democrats. Right. And we should say in Washington, that's kind of how things work. There are law firms known for doing work for Republicans. There are law firms known for doing work for Democrats. Correct. So what happens is, during the campaign, the law firm took over paying for the work of a former British spy who was compiling a dossier on Trump's potential ties to Russia.
And by dossier, of course, you mean the dossier on Donald Trump that becomes a big factor in how we all think in that moment about Trump and Russia. Yeah. Correct. The salacious compilation of unverified intelligence reports that laid out potential ties between Trump, his associates, and Russia. And the chief boogeyman in his eyes was a lawyer for Perkins Cooley, who was the top lawyer on the Clinton campaign, a guy named Mark Elias. who had not only established himself as the top lawyer for Democrats, but had played a role in helping to fund the dossier and represent the campaign.
Controversial move by BuzzFeed last night, publishing a dossier sourced to a person who claims to be a former member of British intelligence.
So as Trump is coming into office, BuzzFeed, of course, published the entire contents of that dossier.
The dossier is everywhere.
This is for that infamous dossier. It's all over the news media. Correct. It is widely thought to be pretty scurrilous.
Some pretty salacious allegations.
This is lurid stuff.
This is all unsubstantiated. And let's be clear for a second just about the dossier. Many of the allegations in it eventually are debunked. But for Trump, Perkins Coie's involvement in the dossier was just unforgivable. Because as he comes into office, he quickly faces this sprawling Justice Department special counsel investigation into potential ties between his campaign and Russia. Right.
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