WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House is staffing up its team of lawyers as it prepares for a complicated mix of ethics issues and policy fights ahead.
The Office of the White House Counsel has hired 26 attorneys, according to a staffing memo reviewed by The Associated Press. The team includes four attorneys who had been with the Washington mega-firm of Jones Day, the alma mater of White House Counsel Don McGahn.
McGahn has worked with Trump continuously since the beginning of his presidential campaign in 2015 and led the selection process for Judge Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s pick to be the next Supreme Court justice. Among other duties, the counsel’s office oversees judicial and executive branch appointments and advises the president on the legal aspects of policymaking, including executive orders.
This counsel’s office also includes a special ethics counselor, Stefan Passantino, and three other senior attorneys dedicated to that topic. Trump, a billionaire who continues to profit from his global business empire, and his Cabinet, which includes an unprecedented number of wealthy business leaders, pose a bounty of ethics questions for McGahn’s team.
McGahn has organized the office under four deputy counsels: Passantino, who was chairman of the Dentons political law team; Greg Katsas, a partner at Jones Day; Makan Delrahim, a partner at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck; and John Eisenberg, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis.