In “The Empire Strikes Back,” Lando Calrissian struck an agreement with Darth Vader, which probably made sense to him at the time. In fact, Calrissian told Han Solo in the 1980 “Star Wars” movie that he had made a deal that would keep the Empire out of Cloud City “forever.”
As the Cloud City administrator soon learned, however, the Empire did not fully intend to follow through on its commitments, even if Calrissian held up his end of the bargain. As the film’s dramatic third act, Vader told his ostensible partner: “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”
As he realized that he had reached an agreement with someone he shouldn’t have trusted, Calrissian complained, “This deal keeps getting worse all the time.”
I wonder how many of the partners at some of the nation’s leading law firms have echoed the sentiment lately.
At last count, Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented offensive against prominent firms, and while a few have fought back (and scored important preliminary legal victories), most of the president’s targets have reached costly deals with him in the hopes of avoiding White House punishments.
But as The New York Times reported, some of these same firms are finding, as Calrissian put it, that their deals keep getting worse all the time.
When some of the nation’s biggest law firms agreed to deals with President Trump, the terms appeared straightforward: In return for escaping the full force of his retribution campaign, the firms would do some free legal work on behalf of largely uncontroversial causes like helping veterans. Mr. Trump, it turns out, has a far more expansive view of what those firms can be called on to do.
Instead of working on anodyne causes, the firms are discovering that the president effectively believes that he sees their attorneys as his own. The Times’ report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that Trump has suggested in recent days that he wants the firms to help him negotiate trade deals and possibly help revive the coal industry, too.
Some administration officials have reportedly discussed directing the firms to help with Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative, too. The Times went on to note, “White House officials believe that some of the pro bono legal work could even be used toward representing Mr. Trump or his allies if they became ensnared in investigations, according to the two people.”
In theory, we could look to the details of the agreements between the firms and the president — as negotiated by Boris Epshteyn, a highly controversial and recently indicted Trump attorney who does not work for the government — but in practice, there’s uncertainty as to whether the deals exist in any kind of formal way. In fact, the Times’ report noted: “It is unclear whether the firms even signed formal written deals spelling out the terms, or if they were essentially handshake agreements.” Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, told the Times, in reference to the firms, “They thought they made one-shot deals which they would fulfill. But the administration seems to think that they have subjected these firms to indentured servitude.” Putting aside the question of whether the firms, like Calrissian, should’ve seen this coming, the broader question is whether the firms will do what Calrissian ultimately did and reverse course. Indeed, it’s not my place to give the firms’ partners advice, but it is worth noting that if they didn’t enter into a legally binding contract with Trump, and they’re no longer pleased with the president’s demands and expectations, there’s nothing stopping them from joining the firms that have already decided to fight back.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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