Sullivan & Cromwell crosses red line to aid Trump in Carroll defamation appeal

Partners warned of expulsion as dissent over Trump work grows

When law firm Sullivan & Cromwell took on Donald Trump as a client last year, co-chairman Robert Giuffra drew a red line for partners wary of working for the president, people familiar with the matter said. The firm would represent Trump in appeals of his felony convictions for falsifying records and a civil-fraud judgment, Giuffra told partners, but it would stay out of his effort to overturn two jury verdicts that Carroll won against him.

Sullivan & Cromwell in recent weeks has crossed that line. The firm has been helping Trump’s legal team prepare a request to the Supreme Court to review the $83 million verdict, people familiar with the firm’s work said. That brief could be filed as soon as this week and is due by the end of the month.

The decision has deepened a rift within the nearly 150-year-old firm over how far it should go to accommodate the president. Some partners have complained to colleagues about a lack of transparency from firm leadership regarding the firm’s work for Trump. In recent weeks, firm leaders have warned that partners who leak will be kicked out of the firm, the people said.

Giuffra and others at Sullivan & Cromwell have been helping Trump’s legal team prepare the high-court petition. The $83 million verdict stems from a separate case in which a jury found Trump liable for defamatory comments he made about Carroll during his first term in office. In June, the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal of a related $5 million verdict in the sexual abuse case.

The Carroll cases were of particular concern for some lawyers because of the nature of Carroll’s allegations — that Trump sexually assaulted her during a chance meeting at a department store in the 1990s — and because big law firms rarely take on such cases for fear of reputational damage, people familiar with the firm said.

Last year, the decision to take on Trump as a client was made by the firm’s executive committee instead of its larger committee of managing partners, which typically has final say over controversial representations, said the people. A firm spokesman said the decision was “undertaken following thorough discussion with our firm’s nearly 200 partners, and deliberation at our Managing Partners Committee and Management Committee.”

The firm declined to comment on the Carroll case. “As with all of our client representations, we do not publicly discuss confidential matters involving our representation of the President,” the spokesman said.

Trump’s personal lawyer and legal coordinator, Boris Epshteyn, had been urging the firm to add the Carroll matter to its portfolio, according to people familiar with his request. The White House referred questions to Trump’s personal legal team. Josh Halpern, the president’s lead counsel in the Carroll litigation, did not respond to requests for comment.

Concern has grown internally over Giuffra’s ties to the president and Epshteyn, particularly if a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives launches investigations into Trump and his family next year, the people said. The firm has also faced other challenges, including high-profile defections from its appellate group in recent months.

Sullivan & Cromwell’s ties to the Trump administration extend beyond casework. One of its former partners, Jay Clayton, is Trump’s nominee to be director of national intelligence. Trump has also named partner James McDonald to replace Clayton as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan.