President Donald Trump added Susman Godfrey on Wednesday to the list of law firms he targets with the weight of the White House intimidation pulpit.
According to an information sheet from the White House, Susman is targeted on what the White House called for his work to “arm the American legal system and degrade the quality of the American elections”.
The Secretary of the Staff of the White House, Will Scharf, described Susman’s action as similar to the previous orders of Trump targeting companies that participated in prosecution against him or hired former government lawyers who worked on disputes related to Trump when the president was not in power. Some Trump targets were among the largest companies in the country, including Perkins Coy.
Susman represented Dominion Voting Systems in his defamation pursuit against Fox News, resulting in a regulation of $ 787.5 in 2023. Fox News, Allies Trump and other conservatives have repeatedly spread rumors unfounded on Dominion electoral machines following the loss of Trump in 2020.
The firm also represents Dominion in a trial against Newsmax, another organization of the conservative media which promoted false conspiracy theories on the role of the electoral technology company during the 2020 elections. In a decision on Wednesday, a few moments before Trump signed the decree, a Delaware judge ruled that Newsmax has defamed Dominion and that the case could proceed.
The company also represents the New York Times in pursuing copyright of the publication against Openai and Microsoft.
Trump has suggested that new actions related to law firms could arrive. He told journalists that “we have five others to leave”.
So far, Paul Weiss, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, and Milbank have all concluded agreements with the White House which calls for hundreds of millions of pro Bono legal work to advance the causes supported by the Trump administration.
On Tuesday, a group of former representatives of the Republican government and Democrat, represented by the lawyers of Susman Godfrey, submitted a friendly file in support of Perkins Coy.
Perkins Coie continued the Trump administration, arguing that its targeting of law firms violated the American Constitution.
“The Constitution did not make the President a king authorized to punish the subjects arbitrarily based on the animus or the whim,” wrote the lawyers of Susman Godfrey in their memory.
businessinsider
