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Let It Burn!
President Donald Trump is using the power of the federal government to intimidate or neuter potential sources of opposition to him: The legal establishment, academia and prominent cultural institutions, the media, the judiciary, the Democratic Party, Congress and independent government oversight.
The unprecedented breadth of the actions Trump and his allies inside the government have taken against his perceived political and ideological opponents in his first two months back in office is stunning – both in the president’s willingness to test the limits of his powers and the extent to which his foes have struggled to respond or even bent to his will.
Through executive orders, his bully pulpit and lieutenants in charge of the Justice Department and other Cabinet agencies, Trump’s actions are paralyzing institutions that stand as pillars of America’s independent civic society.
Within the legal establishment, at least two law firms Trump has a political vendetta against have chosen to cut a deal with him to avert his threats. In academia, universities like Columbia have agreed to sweeping demands that encroach on principles of academic freedom that date back centuries.
“This White House’s public, multi-pronged frontal assault on national institutions is unprecedented,” said Timothy Naftali, the CNN presidential historian and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “Institutions can be rebuilt, but political culture can be poisoned for a generation.”
The sources of typical opposition for a president have been quieted – if not quashed altogether. Independent media organizations like the Associated Press are being shut out of access to the president in favor of pro-Trump outlets, while state-supported media is gutted and threatened with defunding.
The legislative branch has in many ways ceded its constitutional role as a check on the executive. Republicans in Congress have mostly been willing to give up control of federal spending to the Department of Government Efficiency – which has shut down agencies and programs mandated by Congress. And Democrats have flailed amid infighting over how they should oppose Trump.
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Inside his administration, Trump has fired the inspectors general at more than a dozen federal agencies, as well as the head of the Office of Government Ethics.
The one source of sustained pushback to Trump’s actions is the federal judiciary, where judges have repeatedly halted or reversed Trump’s actions that they have ruled go beyond the legal limit. The judges who have stopped Trump have faced attacks from the president and his allies – with threats of impeachment or the elimination of courts that oppose him – and many of the injunctions being levied at the district court level may ultimately not survive a Supreme Court where Trump appointed one third of the justices in his first term.
Trump has boasted about his effectiveness so far. At the White House on Wednesday, he gleefully said that he’s been able to pressure law firms and colleges because the Biden administration’s failures after he lost in 2020 allowed him to return to power and “do things that we could have never done if it were traditional.”
“You see what we’re doing with the colleges, and they’re all bending and saying, ‘Sir thank you very much we appreciate it,’” Trump said.
“And nobody can believe it – including law firms that have been so horrible, law firms that nobody would believe and they’re just saying, “Where do I sign where do I sign?” he continued. “Nobody can believe it. And there’s more coming.”
Law firms’ dilemma: Sue or settle
During the 2024 campaign, Trump repeatedly lobbed attacks against the prosecutors who investigated and indicted him. Now that he’s in office, he has gone a step further by kneecapping the law firms that have employed or defended those who investigated him.Trump has signed executive orders revoking security clearances, restricting access to federal buildings and severing federal ties with lawyers from at least five law firms: one that Hillary Clinton hired in 2016, one retained by special counsel Jack Smith and three that had previously employed lawyers who investigated him.
The onslaught has divided the targeted firms: Some are trying to fight in court while others are settling with Trump.
Trump’s first two targets were Perkins Coie, the Democratic law firm that’s long been in Trump’s crosshairs for its role funding the 2016 Russia dossier, and Covington & Burling, where the White House suspended security clearances of lawyers representing former special counsel Jack Smith, now a private citizen.
Related articleLaw firms are scared to speak out amid Trump’s attacks on their livelihood
Perkins Coie tried to fight back, quickly filing a lawsuit and winning a temporary restraining order from US District Judge Beryl Howell, who issued a scathing ruling accusing the administration of undermining the integrity of the legal system, writing that the president cannot “bring the federal government down on his political opponents … as he has done here.”
Another law firm targeted by Trump took a different path. New York-based Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison was hit with an executive order in part because of the firm’s former partner, Mark Pomerantz, who had investigated Trump in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Last week, the firm struck a settlement with the administration agreeing to the equivalent of $40 million in pro bono legal services to “support the Administration’s initiatives,” in exchange for rescinding the executive order.
Brad Karp, the chairman of Paul Weiss, wrote in a letter to employees the executive order was an “unprecedented threat” that could have “destroyed our firm.” The firm settled, he argued, because a legal fight was a no-win situation.
Sensing weakness, Trump has expanded his list of targeted firms. On Tuesday, he issued another executive order, this time taking aim at Jenner & Block, where Andrew Weissman, a top investigator in the FBI’s 2016 Russia investigation, had once been a partner. And Thursday he added Wilmer Hale to his list, the former law firm of one-time special counsel Robert Mueller. Both firms filed lawsuits Friday to block Trump’s orders.
Another potential target, Skadden Arps, proactively settled with Trump on Friday ahead of a possible executive order, pledging at least $100 million in pro-bono work.
Trump also issued a memo last week to his attorney general, Pam Bondi, ordering her to review the conduct of law firms the administration considers to have filed “frivolous” lawsuits against the United States, going back to his first term.
“American law firms have always represented interests adverse to the US government, without worrying if there would be retribution or sanctions until now,” said Cari Brunelle, the founder of a legal advisory firm that works with several large American law firms. “It’s created just an incredible amount of fear.”
Universities face dire funding threats
The Trump administration has turned the president’s anger over pro-Palestinian campus protests and encampments into policy that’s forced sweeping changes at Columbia University, considered the epicenter of the protests last year.The Trump administration this month canceled $400 million in federal grants to Columbia over alleged “inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Three agencies sent Columbia a letter demanding sweeping policy changes in order to regain access to the money.
The changes included implementing stricter rules for protests, banning masks, announcing a plan to hold student groups accountable, empowering law enforcement, and reviewing its Middle East studies programs and admissions.
“It is, I think, the most serious intrusion into academic freedom, and the autonomy of universities,” said Lee Bollinger, a First Amendment scholar and Columbia’s president for more than two decades. (Naftali, the former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, said that Nixon had wanted to crack down on universities over anti-war protests, but his aides stopped him.)
