Even though President Donald Trump's administration secured promises from some of the nation's biggest law firms to contribute more than $1 billion worth of pro bono work to further the administration's goals, the White House is now reportedly having a hard time getting some of those firms to follow through on their promises.
According to a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal, many of those promises law firms made to perform free legal services have already been broken. This could be partially due to the success that firms who have sued in response to Trump's executive orders targeting them have had in court, with the Journal reporting that all four firms that fought back have so far prevailed. And firms that haven't fulfilled their commitments are reportedly hoping the administration will be too distracted with the work of governing to follow through on threats to suspend security clearances, federal contracts and access to federal buildings.
The Journal reported that the firms that agreed to help Trump only typically perform between $4 million and $5 million worth of pro bono work per year, meaning that in order to fulfill some of those commitments — like the firm Skadden's $100 million promise — it would take decades. And because Trump will leave office in January of 2029, many firms likely aren't taking their commitment to his administration seriously.
The paper further reported that far-right groups who have inundated the firms with requests for legal assistance have so far been stiff-armed. This includes the far-right Heritage Foundation (which is responsible for the notorious Project 2025 playbook), which has asked for help but has yet to receive any outside of initial meetings with some attorneys.
And while Attorney General Pam Bondi has asked the Department of Justice to create ways to help law enforcement officers facing misconduct allegations receive free legal representation from the firms in question, none of them have responded to inquiries. California-based attorney Harry Stern, who represents police officers facing legal proceedings, told the Journal: "It's not happening."
Gary DiBianco, who leads a pro bono litigation group, told the Journal that the administration has likely lost its credibility with any lawyers it hopes to strong-arm into performing free work.
"I think the administration has completely lost the leverage it has over future firms," DiBianco said.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski
Corey Lewandowski, the pugnacious brawler who once managed Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign, will just not go away. No, literally. He has apparently exceeded the 130 days he can serve as a “special government employee”—but he’s not leaving.
Lewandowski has been a frequent presence at the Department of Homeland Security, acting as the de facto chief of staff for Secretary Kristi Noem and amassing power at DHS. He’s fired people, signed off on billions of dollars in grant funding, demanded that employees take polygraph tests, and went to war on employees with pronouns in their bio. Quite the busy boy for someone with no official role.
In order to get around the 130-day limit, it appears that he’s just not clocking in, instead sliding in with other employees so he doesn’t have to swipe his badge. It’s totally great and cool to learn that government building security is so lax that it’s no problem for someone to get in without a badge.
Lewandowski has been keeping his own time, and according to him, he’s only worked 69 days (nice) since January 2025. The administration believes it is an undercount, but thus far, the White House hasn’t taken any action to remove the squatter.
Lewandowski’s employment status is the same as Elon Musk had, but Musk really did leave at the 130-day mark after launching his DOGE disaster. Of course, that departure got very messy when he started feuding with Trump.
Lewandowski draws no salary as an SGE, so it’s not like he’s clinging to this for the cash. But if he leaves, he can’t continue consolidating his power at DHS. He probably wouldn’t be able to accompany Noem on trips to Israel, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia, El Salvador, and Mexico, even if he is her not-at-all-secret boyfriend.
It would be kind of weird to bring your boyfriend to high-level meetings with overseas diplomats or let him steer no-bid government contracts to cronies, as Noem has done with Lewandowski. But hey, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is letting his wife help run the Pentagon and bringing her to sensitive meetings with foreign military leaders, so maybe Lewandowski could just keep tagging along with Noem while she cosplays as a firefighter, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, and a border patrol cowgirl.
The real problem for Lewandowski isn’t the 130-day limit. If the White House wanted him to stay, they’d engage in complicated appointment shenanigans to let him do so, just like they did with Trump’s former personal attorney Alina Habba in her role as Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. There, the White House has strung together various short-term ways to keep her in her job despite not being confirmed by the Senate. But it’s Trump who doesn’t want Lewandowski in an official role, and it’s not like there’s any way around that.
Reportedly, Trump refused to let Lewandowski become Noem’s official chief of staff because he was worried about the optics of him working for someone he is romantically involved with. There’s also the small matter of both Noem and Lewandowski being married to other people, neither of whom ever seem to be mentioned.
So, possible romantic entanglements keep you out of the administration, but inciting people to kill police officers is no problem. Being a far-right troll who represented Andrew Tate? Totes cool. Hanging with white supremacists? You get to lead the U.S. Institute of Peace!
No one knows if the White House will bring the hammer down on Lewandowski, but maybe he can just officially move in with Noem rather than keeping an apartment across the street. It’s no chief of staff job, but at least he’d save some money on rent.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
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