White House Lawyers Up

The Office of the White House Counsel is on a hiring spree ahead of anticipated legal challenges, policy fights, and ethics issues. Twenty-six attorneys have been hired already, the Associated Press reports, including four from Jones Day, the former firm of  White House Counsel Don McGahn. The Counsel’s office includes a special ethics counselor, Stefan Passantino, and three other senior attorneys dedicated to those issues. McGahn has organized the office around four deputy counsels, including: Passantino; Greg Katsas, a partner at Jones Day; Makan Delrahim, a partner at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck; and Kirkland & Ellis partner John Eisenberg, who serves as legal adviser to the National Security Council. Though Trump’s stable of 26 lawyers is greater than that of his predecessor – who had 22 attorneys at the same stage of his presidency – President Obama later bulked up the Counsel’s office to 41 attorneys.