Scorpion, Frog, and Associates

Look, it’s no big deal if you’re a major law firm looking to avoid a direct conflict with the administration. You just agree to do some uncontroversial pro-bono work you’d probably do anyway and let the president announce a win on social media. But that’s not how these negotiations play out. NYT (Gift Article): Law Firms Made Deals With Trump. Now He Wants More From Them. “Over the last week, he has suggested that the firms will be drafted into helping him negotiate trade deals. He has mused about having them help with his goal of reviving the coal industry. And he has hinted that he sees the promises of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal services that he has extracted from the elite law firms … as a legal war chest to be used as he wishes.”

+ “On the call, Zuckerberg sounded confident that President Trump would back him up with the FTC, said people familiar with the matter. The billionaire Facebook co-founder had been developing closer ties to Trump—his company donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and settled a $25 million lawsuit—and had been pressing the president in recent weeks to intervene in the monopoly lawsuit.” Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Failed Negotiations to End Antitrust Case.