On Wednesday in the Oval Office, as markets reeled and a trade war raged, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that had nothing to do with tariffs.

There were some very bad things that happened with these law firms.

The law firm in question was Sussman Godfrey, but it was only the latest of many to be singled out and targeted by the president.

But they don't admit guilt. Remember that. They don't admit guilt.

Law firms had been guilty of, well...

In the president's telling, these are firms that have basically done things that are against American interests that harm the United States.

That is Ryan Lucas, NPR's justice correspondent.

If you talk to people on the other side, the goal, however, is quite different.

The law firms that are targeted say that the effort here is to intimidate them, to punish them for the clients that they have represented.

One of the clients that Sussman Godfrey represented, for example, was Dominion voting systems, which got a massive settlement from Fox News for its lies about the 2020

election. Other firms had represented Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, or had

staff that worked on Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged ties between Trump's orbit and

Russia and possible obstruction of justice during Trump's first administration.

Now, this work has put them in the crosshairs of

the president. Some have fought back. Susman Godfrey, for instance, has filed a lawsuit to try and

block the order, but others have cut deals. On Friday, Trump announced that five more law firms

had reached deals with the administration in order to avoid damaging executive orders.

They had agreed to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in pro bono work for causes that Trump

supports.

Consider this. President Trump is going after law firms that have opposed him in the past.

We will ask what it means for the foundations of the American legal system.

From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow.

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