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WASHINGTON – House and Senate Democrats on Wednesday pressed top law firms for details on the tens of millions of dollars in free legal services they’re providing to President Donald Trump and his administration, warning they may be breaking laws.
In letters to three prominent law firms that capitulated to Trump’s threats earlier this year by agreeing to provide him with pro bono services in exchange for his not attacking their businesses, Democrats demand specifics on the scope and duration of services these firms are currently carrying out for Trump’s “pet causes.”
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Specifically, their letters are coming in response to a New York Times report that two firms — Paul Weiss and Kirkland & Ellis — are providing free legal services on “a range of matters” to the Commerce Department. A third law firm, Skadden Arps, is also reportedly working for the Commerce Department, but it’s unclear whether this firm is being paid or is working for free.
“As you are certainly aware, providing legal services to the Commerce Department without compensation may violate the law,” reads their message to Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp. “The Antideficiency Act, and in particular 31 USC §1342, prohibits the Government from accepting voluntary services and has limited exceptions in order to ensure the Government is not on the hook for financial obligations Congress has not explicitly appropriated.”
These letters, similar versions of which went to the chairmen of Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden Arps, are signed by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a Senate Judiciary Committee member.
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Here’s a copy of their letter to Karp:
Democrats have been demanding details on these law firms’ deals with Trump for months, with limited success. And perhaps some or all of these firms will largely ignore the requests for more information, considering they’re coming from the political party currently not in control of anything in Washington, D.C.
But these aren’t just rank-and-file lawmakers sending letters into the void. These are the Democrats who stand to oversee powerful House and Senate investigative committees the moment their party comes back into power, and that’s precisely why they’re pressing these law firms for details now. They’re laying the groundwork for future, full-blown congressional probes into the corruption and lawlessness that have been in effect under the Trump administration.
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Raskin and Blumenthal have limited powers in the minority. However, the moment the House or Senate flips back to Democratic control (the House is more likely to flip first, as soon as the 2026 midterms), they can promptly begin holding hearings and, if necessary, force people to testify before their full committees. Raskin could and almost certainly will bring in leaders of these law firms, in addition to members of the Trump administration.
He told HuffPost in May that it is “critically important” to create a record of what is happening now for future use, to document “fault lines” in democratic institutions.
“I hope these law firms realize there is no safety in appeasement,” Raskin said at the time. ”Once we get through this nightmare, we have to make sure nobody in the White House or in state power can shake down law firms, media, colleges and universities again for his or her personal enrichment. That’s an agenda that’s about structural reform to prevent exploitation of public office in America.”
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He added, “You can see how that’s 180 degrees away from what Donald Trump is doing, which is setting out to exploit public office to destroy his political enemies.”
Democrats hint at their future investigatory plans in their letters. In their missive to Karp, they note that Paul Weiss’ work for the Commerce Department “clearly falls outside the scope” of the $40 million in free legal services the firm agreed to provide Trump. The White House previously claimed it would be using those services to aid veterans, combating anti-Semitism and promoting fairness in the justice system.
“Absent coercion from the Administration it is difficult to understand how Paul Weiss identified the Commerce Department – a government agency with 13 bureaus, a proposed $8.6 billion in Fiscal Year 2026 discretionary funding – as eligible for pro bono services,” the lawmakers wrote.
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Raskin, Blumenthal and Schiff give all of the firms until Oct. 6 to answer several questions, including how they are being paid for legal services provided to the Commerce Department, and if they aren’t, “what statutory authority is being invoked” to allow the U.S. government to accept voluntary services.
Requests for comment from Paul Weiss, Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden Arps were not immediately returned.
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Democrats are starting the work now for other future investigations, too. This week, House and Senate Democrats reportedly opened separate probes into Trump’s Justice Department dropping a criminal bribery investigation into border czar Tom Homan. Last year, he allegedly accepted a paper bag with $50,000 in cash from FBI agents pretending to be business executives vying for government contracts in Trump’s second term.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Homan did “nothing wrong,” and later that day on Fox News, Homan himself said he “did nothing illegal.”
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Curiously, though, the White House shifted its defense of Homan from denying he accepted a big bag of cash to saying he didn’t do anything wrong. MSNBC reporter Ken Dilanian said Monday that multiple people familiar with the FBI’s operation said Homan did accept the money, and that an internal government document confirms this.