The American Bar Association asked a judge on Tuesday to force the White House to turn over Trump White House law firm subpoenas records, including communications tied to Steve Bannon and Boris Epshteyn. The filing pushes the discovery fight deeper into the ABA’s lawsuit over what it calls a law firm intimidation policy.
The ABA said it wants internal communications and memorandums tied to President Donald Trump’s executive orders against firms last year. It also said its requests are narrowly tailored to the core factual dispute, which it says is whether Trump used executive branch power to pressure firms to abandon clients and causes he did not like.
ABA discovery request in May
The ABA said it served its first discovery request to the White House in May. Since then, the group says, many firms have backed away from clients and cases seen as adverse to the president, and the case has moved into a fight over what the White House must produce.
The ABA’s lawsuit also rests on a separate set of developments it says show the pressure campaign in action. It said a cohort of nine firms pledged almost $1 billion in free legal services on shared causes and agreed to abandon illegal diversity recruiting initiatives.
Bannon and Epshteyn material
Steve Bannon became part of the record after Trump issued an executive order against Perkins Coie. In a taping of his podcast, Bannon said, “Let me repeat this: There’s major law firms in Washington DC” and “What we are trying to do is put you out of business and bankrupt you.”
The ABA also wants materials involving Boris Epshteyn, whom the facts identify as Trump’s personal lawyer. A New York Times report said Epshteyn connected Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden with the Commerce Department about working on US trade deals.
Justice Department in New York
Last week, the Justice Department asked a federal court in New York to block the ABA from seeking information from Epshteyn and to stop a deposition request. That filing adds a second front to the dispute, with the ABA pressing for White House records while the Justice Department tries to limit discovery from Trump’s personal lawyer.
The ABA says four firms that secured court orders striking down executive actions against them are still waiting for an appeals court to weigh in. The remaining question is whether a federal judge will order the White House to produce the records the ABA says sit at the center of the case: communications, memorandums, and the exchange trail around the policy itself.
