AMNA NAWAZ: President Trump yesterday rescinded an executive order targeting prominent law firm Paul Weiss after that firm agreed to drop its DEI policies and to provide $40 million in pro bono work for Trump-aligned causes.

It's the latest in a series of punitive actions the president has taken targeting the legal community.

John Yang has more.

JOHN YANG: Amna, the president targeted firms that either were connected to the criminal cases brought against him or represented Democrats, including Hillary Clinton.

The orders revoked security clearances and banned their employees from government buildings.

The Paul Weiss deal came after a federal judge blocked a similar order against another big firm, Perkins Coie, saying it's likely unconstitutional.

Last week, hundreds of associates at big firms signed an open letter calling on their employers to defend their colleagues and the legal profession and condemn what they called Mr. Trump's intimidation tactics.

Rachel Cohen was an organizer of that letter, and yesterday she quit her job as a financial associate at Skadden, which is one of the highest grossing law firms in the country.

Rachel, yesterday, when you quit, you shared your resignation letter with your colleagues, and I want to read a little bit of it.

You said that: "This is a moment that demands urgency.

Whether we are failing to meet it because we are unprepared or because we don't wish to is irrelevant to me and to the world, where the outcome is the same."

What was it about this moment that led you to quit?

RACHEL COHEN, Former Associate, Skadden: Well, I have been working on a lot of advocacy that did not require me to quit a job that I enjoyed and was very good at.

But the Paul Weiss decision to capitulate to the Trump administration's attempted coup, because that is what we are experiencing right now -- the president issuing an executive order over a temporary restraining order issued by a district court judge on a near identical executive order issued nearly -- nearly a week before is a blatant disregard for rule of law.

And it has been a blatant disregard for rule of law and it's been building an obvious over the last several weeks.

But Paul Weiss' decision to give in to the Trump administration and particularly what they chose to give him made clear to me that the industry is not prepared to meet it.

And if the industry is not prepared to meet it, then I cannot work within it.

JOHN YANG: Rachel, what is it about what Paul Weiss agreed to that you find so objectionable?

RACHEL COHEN: There's two things that Paul Weiss agreed to do that are being widely reported on that are incredibly troubling.

The first is their agreement to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services to the Trump administration, including to support its Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.

It is challenging to come on to TV and say that that's a bad thing, because, of course, we want to combat antisemitism.

But that task force played an integral role and will continue to play an integral role in the type of actions that we have seen very recently in terms of storming of Columbia University dorms, removing people who have legal status in this country and holding them in indefinite ICE detention for exercising free speech rights last year.

So that's item number one.

Item number two is their willingness to collaborate with the Trump administration to examine their hiring policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

That's not just a go-forward commitment.

They have also committed to working with the Trump administration to examine their past hiring practices, which is particularly troubling, because Paul Weiss until yesterday was a place that recruited very, very actively under a notion of diversity.

They targeted Black law students groups and convinced them that, if they came to Paul Weiss, they had a real chance at advancement.

And so they are now taking those associates and throwing them under the bus.

That troubled me in particular because there are 20 firms that have received an EEOC demand letter from the Trump administration related to their hiring practices and demanding personal information about applicants from 2019 on.

That information includes name, telephone number, e-mail address, and it focuses heavily on SEO Fellow applicants and 1L diversity scholar or diversity scholarship applicants broadly.

Those are programs that existed across the industry until extremely recently and a strong pipeline for nonwhite associates to come into the industry.

EEOC demand letters are not legally binding.

You do not have to respond to them.

And what prompted my ultimate resignation was that I am at one of the firms that received a demand letter, and they refuse to confirm that they will not be cooperating and providing that information.

I cannot allow an employer that I continue to dedicate time and effort and energy to throw my colleagues of color under the bus.

JOHN YANG: What's your concern if more big firms try to reach agreements, as Paul Weiss did, rather than stand up and challenge it, as Perkins Coie is doing?

RACHEL COHEN: I think that my concern is that the coup that is ongoing will be done.

JOHN YANG: Well, talk about the role these big law firms play in sort of a watchdog role to government.

RACHEL COHEN: Listen, I am not coming on here and saying that big law firms are going to be the front lines of the defense of justice in this country.

But they are a powerful resource for the public interest attorneys and organizations that are on the front lines of challenging Trump administration actions, particularly those that are unconstitutional.

The Trump administration is waging a campaign to see what the legal industry will put up with, because it's a multipronged attack on the court system broadly, as the only branch of government that currently might have any power to check him when he oversteps his authority.

And so if big law firms are unwilling to throw those resources behind the public interest attorneys doing the work, which was an important part of challenging things like the Muslim ban in 2016, there is no rule of law.

JOHN YANG: Since you went public with your resignation yesterday, what have you been hearing from your counterparts at other firms and your colleagues at Skadden?

RACHEL COHEN: Gratitude.

JOHN YANG: Have associates at Paul Weiss reached out to you about anything?

RACHEL COHEN: They have.

I had a couple that reached out today and said, how do I do that?

JOHN YANG: How do I quit?

RACHEL COHEN: How do I quit the way that you did?

And I say, the e-mail is online.

JOHN YANG: You have set the model for them, in other words?

RACHEL COHEN: I hope so.

But, more than that, I'm hoping that the associates do not have to do that and that their employers, the partnerships, the people that should actually be defending the rule of law in this way, will step up, because it is not yet too late, but it is about to be.

JOHN YANG: Rachel Cohen, thank you very much.

RACHEL COHEN: Thank you.