Important Work by Don McGahn as White House Counsel

Today, Politico profiled 2017 Ed Meese Award winner Don McGahn's important work as White House Counsel to President Trump:

McGahn’s . . . office of roughly 26 attorneys provides the administration with the intellectual underpinning for its most significant decisions, including the military strikes in Syria, the legality of the travel bans and immigration executive orders, the vetting of political appointees and the policing of conflicts of interest. . . . 

McGahn's friends and fellow lawyers say he’s well-equipped to play a leading role as a trusted legal and political adviser. 

“McGahn is involved in everything. I am not exaggerating,” said longtime friend Randy Evans, [former] chairman of the Republican National Lawyers Association. “When you prove to be a reliable voice, who not only gives good legal answers but also good political ones, that is increasingly what happens. You get called on more and more.” . . .  

On hiring, McGahn must approve every lawyer within each agency’s general counsel’s office, down to the most junior member. . . . Outside the executive branch, McGahn is moving to radically reshape the entire judicial system by hand selecting over 100 judges to fill lower court vacancies. . . . McGahn also shepherded Neil Gorsuch through the Supreme Court confirmation process, one of the longest-lasting policy moves a president can make and one of the few highlights of Trump’s first 100 days in office. . . . He’s also taken a leading role in pushing the administration’s efforts to examine and trim back the federal government’s broad array of regulations, according to Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, who took a leave to advise Trump on the Supreme Court and worked closely with McGahn on the confirmation fight. “Every White House counsel has enormous influence, and Don McGahn is no exception to that,” Leo said.

Thank you, Don McGahn, for your important work serving President Trump and the country as White House Counsel.  You can watch Mr. McGahn's remarks from the 2017 National Policy Conference upon receiving the Ed Meese Award here (beginning at 35:25).