Obama Blasts Elite Law Firms and Universities for Caving to Trump: “I’m Not Impressed”

At a private fundraiser in New Jersey last Friday, former President Barack Obama delivered a pointed rebuke to some of the nation’s most prestigious legal and academic institutions, accusing them of compromising their principles to curry favor with the Trump administration.

Speaking to a closed-door audience, Obama expressed deep frustration with the way several prominent law firms had responded to pressure from Donald Trump’s presidency, choosing self-preservation over standing firm on legal ethics and democratic values.

According to attendees who later spoke to reporters, Obama didn’t mince words. “They didn’t cave because they were facing jail time,” he reportedly said. “They caved because they might lose a few clients, or maybe they wouldn’t be able to finish the kitchen renovation on their house in the Hamptons. I’m not impressed.”

Obama’s comments appeared to be in direct reference to several large corporate law firms that came under scrutiny earlier this year after the Trump administration signed executive orders targeting those firms. The orders accused legal giants such as Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, and Covington & Burling of weaponizing the courts for political purposes and revoked their government security clearances. Several firms also faced reviews of existing contracts with federal agencies.

While a few firms resisted, initiating legal challenges against the administration’s directives, others reportedly chose to cooperate. Some, like Paul Weiss and Kirkland & Ellis, agreed to take on pro bono legal work aligned with conservative interests, raising eyebrows among legal professionals and Democratic lawmakers alike.

Obama, who once interned at Sidley & Austin during law school and later practiced civil rights law in Chicago, expressed disappointment in a legal community he has long been connected to.

“These are institutions that are supposed to represent justice and integrity,” he said. “And yet, too many chose to play it safe rather than defend the principles they claim to uphold.”

But the legal profession wasn’t the only target of Obama’s critique. He also turned his attention to academia, particularly his alma mater, Columbia University, which he accused of yielding to political pressure.

Earlier this year, Columbia faced a significant threat from the Trump administration in the form of a proposed $400 million federal funding cut. The administration justified the move by citing the university’s alleged failure to rein in anti-Semitic behavior during student protests related to the war in Gaza.

Ultimately, Columbia agreed to meet several of the administration’s demands. For Obama, this was a dangerous concession.

“If your core mission is to educate, you do that without surrendering the independence that makes scholarship meaningful,” he said. “Yes, you may lose some grant money. That’s why you have those massive endowments in the first place.”

Obama’s remarks were part of a broader warning he’s been issuing in recent months — that American institutions are at risk of erosion from within. Speaking at a separate event in Connecticut last month, he warned that the United States was edging dangerously close to authoritarianism under Trump’s influence.

“We haven’t crossed that line yet,” he said. “But we are certainly seeing the normalization of behavior that threatens the very foundation of our democracy.”

Meanwhile, as Obama sharpens his critiques, his Democratic successor, Joe Biden, is fending off his own wave of scrutiny.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Biden defended his controversial use of an autopen — a device used to automatically replicate signatures — during the final days of his presidency. The device was employed to sign off on what the White House described as the largest single-day act of clemency in U.S. history, affecting more than 1,500 individuals.

Biden clarified that while he did not personally approve every name on the list, he did establish the criteria used for determining eligibility.

“I made the decisions,” Biden told the Times. “We had discussions about what the standards should be, and I signed off on those.”

Critics, particularly from the Republican Party, have seized on the use of the autopen as symbolic of what they see as Biden’s detached governing style. But administration officials pushed back, noting that the sheer volume of clemency paperwork made manual signatures impractical during the final days of his term.

“This wasn’t about cutting corners,” one aide told reporters. “It was about efficiency. Every recipient met the criteria set by the president himself.”

As the political landscape heats up, both Obama and Biden find themselves at the center of a national conversation about integrity, institutional resilience, and the moral choices faced by those in positions of power.

And if Obama’s recent remarks are any indication, he’s not done holding those institutions accountable — no matter how lofty their reputations may be.