The American Bar Association is pressing a federal judge to force the White House to hand over internal communications tied to its executive orders targeting major law firms.
In a Tuesday filing in American Bar Association v. Executive Office of the President, the ABA asked U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to compel the disclosure of documents involving Steve Bannon and Boris Epshteyn.
Epshteyn serves as Donald Trump’s personal senior counsel and reportedly connected two firms, Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden, with the Commerce Department on matters tied to U.S. trade negotiations.
Both firms had struck deals with the administration rather than challenge their executive orders in court, raising questions about whether back-channel pressure played a role.
Bannon previously stated on his own podcast that the administration’s goal with the targeted firms was explicit and unambiguous, saying: “What we are trying to do is put you out of business and bankrupt you.”
The ABA said it “seeks a limited number of internal White House communications and documents that concern one central factual dispute of this case: the existence of the Policy.”
The ABA filed its original lawsuit in June 2025, arguing the executive orders and wave of pre-emptive firm capitulations amounted to a coordinated policy rather than isolated grievances against individual firms.
The DOJ previously sought to have the case dismissed, but Judge Ali rejected that motion in April, finding the ABA had plausibly alleged a real threat of retaliation and a documented chilling effect on members.
That chilling effect included instances of firms declining pro bono work seen as adverse to the administration, which formed part of the evidentiary basis for the court’s ruling against dismissal.
Four firms, Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, and Susman Godfrey, chose to fight their individual executive orders and won at the district court level on First, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment grounds.
Nine other firms did not fight, instead cutting deals worth roughly $940 million in pro bono commitments directed toward Trump-approved causes rather than pursuing litigation.
The DOJ’s posture toward the firms that won in court has shifted notably, as the department dropped its appeals of those district court losses in March before reversing course roughly two weeks later.
In reversing course, the DOJ cited the nine capitulating firms as evidence the policy had worked exactly as designed, a framing the ABA argues supports its coordinated-policy theory.
The government has pushed back hard against the ABA’s document requests, arguing they raise separation-of-powers concerns and are overbroad in scope.
Last week, the DOJ separately asked a federal court in New York to block the ABA from deposing Epshteyn directly, adding another front to the legal dispute.
The ABA offered on Tuesday to narrow certain requests in an apparent effort to overcome those objections and move the discovery process forward.
Judge Ali will now rule on the matter, with the DOJ’s response to the ABA’s Tuesday brief due on 17 July 2026.