[Democratic voter] anger has been directed at a cadre of individuals, including former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, as well as recent second gentleman Doug Emhoff—all of whom continue to hold posts at firms that have cut deals with the White House.
[...]
They feel like Democratic leaders’ actions are too often disconnected from their rhetoric about the existential stakes for democracy: that they’ve been talking the talk but not walking the walk. And they’ve watched in horror as institutions they once thought were philosophically aligned with them (including academia and Big Law) have, instead, maneuvered to avoid Trump’s ire rather than confront it.
[...]
And just this week, Milbank LLP, where Neal Katyal, acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, is a partner, agreed to provide $100 million in pro bono work to causes supported by Trump.
[...]
Katyal is a fierce and frequent cable-news Trump critic. Johnson urged those in the legal profession to fight against rising authoritarianism in the weeks before the election. Lynch also warned in the leadup to the election that Trump threatened the future of democracy.
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It’s about whether party leadership can continue to preach to voters about the importance of fighting fascism—all while some prominent figures in the party refuse to trade a multimillion-dollar annual paycheck for a not-quite-as-comfortable (but still multimillion!) paycheck at a firm not kowtowing to Trump.
[...]
The pressure to resign may be most acutely felt for Emhoff, in part because of his wife’s future political ambitions. Harris is reportedly looking at a run for governor in California. And Democratic strategists in the state said Emhoff’s continued presence at Willkie could complicate matters if it persists into 2026. He will almost certainly be peppered with questions about the pro bono cases his firm takes up on behalf of the Trump administration and be repeatedly asked if he feels like he has a responsibility to publicly resist Trump’s shakedown of the legal community.
[...]
Speaking at a charity gala dinner Thursday night in Los Angeles, Emhoff said that he told Willkie leadership he wanted to fight Trump but was overruled, according to CNN. A person familiar with the situation told The Bulwark that hours before the deal was announced on Tuesday, Emhoff spoke at an event at Georgetown Law School and warned students: “The rule of law is under attack. Democracy is under attack. And so, all of us lawyers need to do what we can to push back on that. . . . Us lawyers have always been on the frontlines, fighting for civil rights, for justice. . . . I love being a lawyer, this is what we do: We fight for people. We fight for what’s right.”
Bulwark
Except when our jobs are on the line, he did not say.
PRIVATELY, TOP OFFICIALS AT THESE FIRMS argue that the anger being directed at them is overblown. They insist that they have given up relatively little in exchange for Trump not entirely decimating their practices, as they believe his executive orders would have done. Several have argued that the threat of the president’s actions had a chilling effect on their business, and that competing firms were already trying to poach clients by using Trump’s executive order as leverage.
Cowards.
[T]he legal community, writ large, has widely agreed that Trump’s actions are blatantly illegal. They’ve noted that law firms that have challenged Trump’s actions in court have been successful. In an attempt to demonstrate some resolve, more than 500 law firms signed on to an amicus brief on Friday in support of Perkins Coie—one of the firms targeted by the Trump administration.
When the law is nothing more than a dead idea and the dollar has tanked, these cowardly law firms and lawyers will be out of work anyway.
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