President Donald Trump on Wednesday added Susman Godfrey to the list of law firms he’s targeting with the weight of the White House’s bully pulpit.
According to a White House fact sheet, Susman is being targeted over what the White House has called its work to “weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections.”
White House staff secretary Will Scharf described the Susman action as similar to Trump’s previous orders targeting firms that either participated in suits against him or hired former government attorneys who worked on Trump-related litigation when the president was out of power. Some of Trump’s targets have been among the biggest firms in the country, including Perkins Coie.
Susman represented Dominion Voting Systems in its defamation suit against Fox News, resulting in a $787.5 settlement in 2023. Fox News, Trump allies, and other conservatives repeatedly spread unfounded rumors about Dominion’s election machines in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 loss.
The firm also represents Dominion in a lawsuit against Newsmax, another conservative media organization that promoted false conspiracy theories about the election technology company’s role in the 2020 election. In a ruling Wednesday, moments before Trump signed the executive order, a Delaware judge ruled that Newsmax defamed Dominion and that the case could proceed to trial.
The firm also represents The New York Times in the publication’s copyright suit against OpenAI and Microsoft.
Trump hinted that further law firm-related actions may be coming. He told reporters that “we have another five to go.”
So far, Paul Weiss, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, and Milbank have all reached deals with the White House that call for hundreds of millions in pro bono legal work to advance Trump administration-supported causes.
On Tuesday, a group of former Republican and Democratic government officials, represented by Susman Godfrey lawyers, filed an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie.
Perkins Coie sued the Trump administration, arguing its targeting of law firms violated the US Constitution.
“The Constitution did not make the President a king empowered to punish subjects arbitrarily based on animus or whim,” wrote the Susman Godfrey attorneys in their brief.
