Michael S. Schmidt✓

NYT top newsroom lawyer David McCraw: “This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”

It was once extremely rare for grand jurors to rebuff prosecutors and turn down a request for an indictment, given that the Justice Department has traditionally sought criminal charges only in cases it expects to win. But prosecutors have become increasingly convinced they will be unable to bring any indictment that is seen as political while Trump is in office.

Important to remember: While DOJ announced charges in recent days against two former F.B.I. agents and the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, none of them were charged by a grand jury, a hurdle prosecutors will need to get over in order to move forward with a criminal prosecution.

RT @tylerpager: SCOOP: Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan billionaire, really wanted a pardon. He got it not long after his daughter hired Alina Habba, a lawyer close to Trump, in a deal worth more than $50 million. Habba was also working at DOJ at the time.

RT @mikiebarb: Or … maybe just a really hard working and enterprising young man who has written multiple award winning college journalism exposes ….and then a really impressive book (I read it!) ….the kind of reporter, delivering genuinely original journalism, that everyone in our industry should …. celebrate?

from last night: DOJ/SDNY walked away from criminal case being brought against ex CIA analyst accused of secretly working for South Korean government and accepting luxury gifts in return. The analyst, Sue Mi Terry, was set to go on trial in just weeks. She is married to Washington Post columnist Max Boot. SDNY did not provide an explanation for why it took highly unusual move of walking away from a case. w/@SantulN

RT @MikeVorkunov: Adam Silver alluded to the NYT's reported DOJ investigation into the Clippers in discussing why he thinks Steve Ballmer accepted the NBA's punishment but not its allegation of wrongdoing, and if that's good enough for the league. "There are other inquiries that have nothing to do with the NBA that the Clippers and Steve Ballmer are now dealing with," Silver said. "My assumption is in some cases he has to choose his words carefully in terms of what he is saying."

NEW and BREAKING: Justice Department prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into revelations the Clippers helped arrange secret sponsorship contracts for the star player Kawhi Leonard that circumvented the salary cap. w/@WRashbaum @SantulN

NEW: The trove of documents released by the White House last week about the Russia investigation shed new light on a longstanding question: Whatever happened to the counterintelligence investigation the FBI wanted done into Trump's ties to Russia? Short answer: It was sidetracked before it ever had a chance to get going.

.@TinaBrownLM weighs in on Paul Weiss: “It turns out that the only reason Karp et al. stood up to Trump in the first term was because there were no consequences for defiance. Moral courage was really moral vanity. The Trump reckoning moment exposed how costly the real work of morality can be.”

RT @SquawkCNBC: The New York Times' @nytmike weighs in on the paper's deep dive into prominent law firm Paul, Weiss. "The fear at Paul, Weiss was that if they didn't make a deal with the President that they were going to be persona non grata," he says.

NEW/EXCLUSIVE: Paul Weiss led the legal resistance during Trump’s 1st term. Dating back to Civil Rights era it stood up to the govt no matter who was in power. But it became one of the 1st institutions to bend knee to Trump. Here’s the inside story of how that happened w/@jbsgreenberg

Among the more remarkable things we found out was that Paul Weiss paid for associates to work on the Manhattan DA’s criminal investigation of Trump. In 20 years covering criminal investigations, I had never heard of such an arrangement in a criminal matter.

NEW: Top Cong Dems said in interviews that investigating Trump's law firm deals will be one way they use their power if they win back control of one or both houses. Dems made statements as they sent new letter to Skadden demanding info on deal with Trump.

Senator Richard Blumenthal said he wanted Brad Karp, the former chairman of the firm Paul Weiss, to testify under oath about the deal he reached with the administration.

“A lot of really good lawyers have left Paul Weiss because they couldn’t stomach this corrupt bargain, and they probably know more than we know,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “We would probably have some whistle-blowers and other sources of information.”

RT @grynbaum: NEW: The Trump administration's effort to unmask @nytimes confidential sources on AF1 reporting is wider than previously known. DOJ subpoenaed phone records of NYT journalists & their relatives, including one reporter’s mother. 2 subpoenas seek records dating back to January 1.

RT @patrickhealynyt: Why are the Trump administration’s subpoenas to five @nytimes reporters relevant to all Americans? Because the role of a free press in a democracy is at stake, as @nytimes executive editor Joe Kahn lays out in this video (gift link).

RT @grynbaum: Lawyers for @nytimes have filed a motion to quash the subpoenas issued to its journalists by the Trump administration last week. “They violate the constitutional rights of The Times and its journalists," the paper said. "We are going to court to defend our journalists’ rights."

NEW BREAKING: Behind closed doors, a battle has erupted between Trump admin and the law firms that cut deals last year. The firms have lawyered up. DOJ is demanding the firms' leaders sit for depositions. At the center of it all are questions about the role Boris Epshteyn played in the deals w/@DevlinBarrett