Stephen Harper. Common Dreams

In an early victory for President Donald Trump’s protection racket, the leaders of nine prestigious Big Law firms collectively paid almost $1 billion and sacrificed their professional integrity to secure peace with his administration—or so they thought.

They were wrong.

In June 2025, the American Bar Association (ABA) sued the Trump administration for targeting those firms and five others. The ABA claims that Trump has sought to intimidate attorneys from representing clients and causes that he didn’t like.

After a federal judge denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the ABA’s complaint in April, the ABA subpoenaed the files of Trump adviser Boris Ephsteyn, a key liaison in negotiating settlements between the nine capitulating firms and the White House. The Department of Justice (DOJ) moved to quash the subpoena, arguing that the confidentiality of presidential communications is a constitutional safeguard.

Among the problems with the government’s position are that:

1. Ephsteyn is a personal senior counsel to Trump;
2. He has no official position in the White House or the administration; and
3. Trump has not asserted executive privilege.

The dispute may well land in the US Supreme Court, which has become Trump’s preferred forum.

The Justice Department Opens a New Front in Trump’s Continuing War

On July 2, the DOJ took a step that seemed odd: It served subpoenas on the nine capitulating firms, as well as four firms that fought Trump’s executive order and won. (It also subpoenaed a firm that took no public action.) Those subpoenas sought some of the same information that the ABA wanted from Ephsteyn:

All communications on or after January 20, 2025 that [each firm] sent to Boris Epshteyn, received from Boris Epshteyn, or participated in with Boris Epshteyn.

They also sought all communications relating to the negotiations, implementation, enforcement, and monitoring of the agreements.

Presumably the Justice Department already has access to the law firms’ communications with Ephsteyn. If so, why did it subpoena the firms for some of the same material, including documents that it didn’t want the White House to provide in response to the ABA’s subpoena?

Possible answers:

1. The DOJ wants the 14 subpoenaed firms to pressure the ABA into withdrawing its subpoena seeking Ephsteyn’s files. If so, it has misread the room badly. In April, the ABA filed an amicus brief with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on behalf of its 400,000 members supporting the four law firms that successfully challenged the constitutionality of Trump’s executive orders. The ABA isn’t going to save the capitulating Big Law firms from themselves.
2. The department doesn’t trust Ephsteyn or the White House to provide it with all relevant materials that Ephsteyn has.
3. The subpoenas were a predicate for the DOJ’s next move: trying to disqualify the ABA’s outside counsel—Susman Godfrey, one of the four big firms that won court challenges to Trump’s executive orders.

The Justice Department Tries to Avoid the Plain Language of the Applicable Rule

On July 17, the DOJ moved to disqualify Susman Godfrey from representing the ABA. It relies on the governing District of Columbia Rules of Professional Conduct, specifically, Rule 3.7, which states: “A lawyer shall not act as advocate at a trial in which the lawyer is likely to be a necessary witness….” [Emphasis supplied]

The Justice Department argues that the rule “contains a bright line rule prohibiting a lawyer from serving as both advocate and fact witness in the same matter….”

Not quite.

First, Rule 3.7 does not apply to all “fact witnesses.” It applies only to necessary witnesses. Susman Godfrey lawyers have become potential witnesses only because the DOJ subpoenaed documents from the firm as a whole.

Second, the rule applies only to individual lawyers within a law firm and, except in special circumstances inapplicable to the ABA case, not to all members of an entire firm. The DOJ has sought to depose as potential witnesses only the chairpersons of the 14 firms.

Third, the rule focuses on the interests of the client (here, the ABA), not its opponent (the White House). As the official commentary to Rule 3.7 explains: “If the only reason for not permitting a lawyer to combine the roles of advocate and witness is possible prejudice to the opposing party [the White House], there is no reason to disqualify other lawyers in the testifying lawyer’s firm from acting as advocates in that trial.”

Finally, the rule bars only an advocate who is likely to be a necessary witness at trial. The case may never reach the trial stage, and Susman Godfrey is free to represent the ABA until it does. Since 1992, DC Bar Ethics Opinion 228 has made that clear.

Meanwhile, the nine capitulating firms now face a quandary: What does Trump want from them? If they comply with the DOJ’s subpoenas, they will disclose some of the very information that the Justice Department is trying block by objecting to the ABA’s subpoena.

Regardless of the DOJ’s motivations, federal judges do not take kindly to an advocate’s misreading of the governing law or ignoring precedent that cuts against its position.

Here’s the real kicker: The subpoenas to Susman Godfrey and its fellow resisting law firms have already backfired. They are more evidence supporting the ABA’s claims of presidential intimidation and harassment.

As for the nine firms that settled—and the many other institutions that have that capitulated to Trump—the entire episode demonstrates that appeasing a bully will never produce finality.

Jeffrey Epstein may have committed suicide in 2019, but he remains an albatross around President Donald Trump’s neck. During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised to release all of the Justice Department’s Epstein files. As president, he could honor that pledge with the stroke of a social media post. Instead, he has done everything in his power to prevent such disclosure.

Some pundits claim that Trump has finally reversed his earlier resistance to releasing the files. He hasn’t. Rather, he has deployed yet another strategy to achieve his true objective—continued secrecy. And he’s relying on his faithful sycophant, Attorney General Pam Bondi, to execute it.

Attempt #1: Stonewalling

Back in July, Bondi’s Justice Department, together with FBI Director Kash Patel, declared that after an exhaustive review of the entire file, the investigation into Epstein’s sex trafficking of minors was over: “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

The department would release no additional materials from the Epstein files: “No further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”

Attempt #2: The Attack

As Trump’s MAGA base erupted over his administration’s refusal to release the files, he lashed out at fellow Republicans. He called supporters clamoring for greater transparency “stupid,” “foolish,” and victims of a “Democrat hoax.”

It didn’t work.

Attempt #3: The Disingenuous Directive

MAGA’s anger grew. So Trump directed Bondi to ask that the courts release the grand jury transcripts in the cases against Epstein and his coconspirator, Ghislane Maxwell.

It was a ruse. Trump and his lawyers knew that the courts were not likely to release the material, which was a tiny fraction of the DOJ file anyway. Sure enough, they didn’t. And several judges wrote blistering opinions exposing the farce and blasting Bondi for pursuing the effort.

Attempt #4: The Illusion of Transparency

Bondi’s next ploy on Trump’s behalf was the production of documents in response to a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee. It turned out that only 3% of the 20,000 documents was new. And courts had confirmed that there were 100,000 documents in the Epstein files. Where were the rest?

Attempt #5: The Shutdown

A Democrat won the Arizona special election to the US House of Representatives. As a result, a discharge petition on the resolution demanding disclosure of the Epstein files would now have the crucial 218th signature required to force a vote on the House floor.

But Trump’s lackey in the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), refused to swear in the newly-elected member. He claimed that because the House was in recess due to the government shutdown, he could not admit her. It was a subterfuge that gave Trump time to twist arms in an effort to change votes.

Attempt #6: The Strongarm

Three Republicans had sided with the Democrats to reach the 218-vote threshold required to move the Epstein resolution forward in the House. Bondi and Patel met with one of them, Rep. Laura Boebert (R-Colo.), in the White House Situation Room. A second target was Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). Trump attacked the third GOP defector, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), publicly: He withdrew his endorsement and called her “wacky,” “a disgrace,” “a traitor,” and “a nuisance.”

None of the Republicans budged. Trump was going to lose the House vote.

Attempt #7: Back to Bondi

Faced with the reality that he couldn’t stop the House from passing the resolution requiring release of the Epstein files, Trump said that he would sign the resolution after it passed the Senate.

That’s a ruse too. And once again, he turned to Bondi for another escape hatch. In a social media post, Trump declared:

I will be asking A.G. Pam Bondi, and the Department of Justice, together with our great patriots at the FBI, to investigate Jeffrey Epstein’s involvement and relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and many other people and institutions, to determine what was going on with them, and him.

Only 217 minutes later, Bondi responded:

Thank you, Mr. President. SDNY U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton is one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country, and I’ve asked him to take the lead. As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.

Now the punchline: The Justice Department will not release materials relating to an active investigation. The investigations that Trump has ordered could well suffice. Jay Clayton, who has no criminal law experience but enjoyed a stellar pre-Trump reputation as a corporate partner in the elite firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, now faces a crucial test of character.

The stated basis for the DOJ rule is that disclosure could compromise the investigative process. Never mind that in July, Bondi said that the department’s thorough investigation of the entire file “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

And the department can release—or not release—whatever it chooses. There is no meaningful enforcement mechanism. If DOJ withholds Epstein material related to Trump, the public will never know, unless there’s a whistleblower somewhere. But Trump, Bondi, and Patel have purged the top ranks of the Justice Department of anyone who is not a Trump loyalist.

The next time you hear that Trump has somehow reversed his earlier resistance to releasing the Epstein files, remember that he hasn’t. He could have ordered their disclosure long ago; he never needed a congressional resolution compelling it.

But Pam Bondi has reversed her position that the files contain nothing that warrants further investigation of anyone associated with Epstein.

Leading America’s Department of Justice is someone whom no one can trust—except Donald Trump.

When we left convicted sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell, she had just received several remarkable gifts from the Trump administration.

First, while serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking minors as Jeffrey Epstein’s procurer, she got an unprecedented meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the second highest official in the Justice Department. Blanche was also U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in the hush-money trial resulting in his 34 felony convictions. That such a meeting even occurred astonished legal observers across the political spectrum.

Second, only a week later, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Prisons transferred Maxwell out of the Florida Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, a minimum security prison with horrendous conditions. Her new home is the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas—a “Club Fed” that houses white-collar criminals and celebrities who have far better living quarters and relative freedom of movement.

The Plot Thickens

Now independent journalist and podcast host Allison Gill (“Mueller, She Wrote” on Bluesky) reports, “I have Ghislaine Maxwell’s security score, custody level, transfer code, public safety factor, and sex offender waiver.”

If accurate, Gill’s information confirms my earlier observation that sex offenders are not eligible for placement in a federal prison camp. Someone has to waive such a prisoner’s mandatory “public safety factor” that would otherwise bar a transfer to one.

Gill also notes, “What stands out here is the custody level ‘OUT,’ which allows her to leave the minimum security campus for work assignments.” [Italics in original]

Déjà Vu?

In some respects, Maxwell is following in the footsteps of her mentor. In June 2008, federal prosecutors in Florida had identified 31 victims whom it was prepared to name in an indictment of Jeffrey Epstein. President George W. Bush’s deputy attorney general had determined that federal prosecution of Epstein was appropriate.

But then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Alex Acosta negotiated a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein’s high-powered lawyers. The federal charges were dropped. In return, Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges: one count of solicitation of prostitution and one count of solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18.

I predict that Trump will now blame the courts for his own lack of transparency.

Epstein served a 13-month sentence in a private wing of a Palm Beach jail. He was allowed to leave 12 hours a day, six days a week, to work out of a nearby office. After his release, he resumed sex trafficking in minors with Maxwell as his coconspirator. In 2019, Epstein was indicted on new federal charges.

Acosta had agreed to keep the non-prosecution agreement confidential. In 2019, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors had violated the victims’ rights by failing to notify them of the plea deal. By then, Acosta was secretary of labor in Trump’s first administration. After the revelation of his role in the earlier Epstein plea deal, he resigned.

Meanwhile, A Courageous Judge Exposed Trump’s Latest Ploy

Trump has tried desperately to walk away from the Epstein conspiracy theories that he had pushed to energize his MAGA base. But nothing has worked. As the MAGA core cracked, pressure mounted and he made a hollow pledge: Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the courts’ permission to release grand jury materials relating to Epstein and Maxwell.

As I observed previously, that was a head fake toward transparency because: 1) grand jury materials are a tiny slice of the Justice Department’s files on Epstein; and 2) the courts could refuse to release anything at all.

And the courts have done just that. So far, Bondi is now 0-for-2 in her effort to obtain judicial release of the Epstein-Maxwell grand jury materials.

Bondi’s latest rebuke came on August 11 in New York. In a blistering opinion, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer called out Trump’s subterfuge. The court observed that the “special circumstances” required for releasing Maxwell’s grand jury materials are not present.

The Government’s invocation of special circumstances, however, fails at the threshold. Its entire premise—that the Maxwell grand jury materials would bring to light meaningful new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes, or the Government’s investigation into them—is demonstrably false.

The court continued:

A member of the public familiar with the Maxwell trial record who reviewed the grand jury materials that the Government proposes to unseal would thus learn next to nothing new.

Turning the government’s words back on it, the judge ruled:

A “public official,” “lawmaker,” “pundit,” or “ordinary citizen” “deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter,” Motion to Unseal at 3, and who reviewed these materials expecting, based on the Government’s representations, to learn new information about Epstein’s and Maxwell’s crimes and the investigation into them, would come away feeling disappointed and misled. There is no “there” there.

Judge Engelmayer’s most insightful and telling passage was also his most direct:

The one colorable argument under that doctrine for unsealing in this case, in fact, is that doing so would expose as disingenuous the Government’s public explanations for moving to unseal. A member of the public, appreciating that the Maxwell grand jury materials do not contribute anything to public knowledge, might conclude that the Government’s motion for their unsealing was aimed not at “transparency” but at diversion—aimed not at full disclosure but at the illusion of such.

Judge Engelmayer’s powerful condemnation is remarkable. He blasted Bondi’s attempt to use the court as a vehicle for Trump’s deflection, distraction, and diversion playbook.

Another federal judge in New York is considering the Justice Department’s request to release Epstein’s grand jury materials. I predict that Bondi goes 0-for-3.

I predict that Trump will now blame the courts for his own lack of transparency.

And I predict that the Ghislaine Maxwell scandal will live on….