🌅 Today’s stat: $940 million

SOURCE

Axios

WHAT TO KNOW

• Nine of the country’s most prominent law firms have signed agreements pledging nearly a billion dollars in free legal work for the Trump administration. Trump announced deals with five law firms last Friday, including four—Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher, Kirkland & Ellis, and A&O Sherman—that will each provide at least $125 million in free work.

WHY IT MATTERS

• The law firms are settling with the president to avoid being hit by his recent executive orders that restrict the firms’ access to federal buildings and officials, revoke crucial security clearances, threaten existing federal contracts, and target the firms with lawsuits over internal diversity policies. Trump has said he’ll use the firms to work on pro bono projects he approves and may have the firms negotiate deals stemming from his ongoing trade wars.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Four law firms have decided to fight Trump rather than pay him, suing the administration to block enforcement of the executive orders (more than 800 law firms, legal faculty, and former judges have also signed briefs supporting the challenges and denouncing Trump's orders). One of the law firms suing the administration is Susman Godfrey, which Trump has targeted with executive orders after the firm represented Dominion Voting in its landmark defamation case against Fox News in 2023.