We intend to highlight every law firm and lawyer working with the new administration so we can all be very clear who supports what.
The National Law Journal reported Friday…
President-elect Donald Trump has brought in lawyers with U.S. Department of Justice and congressional ties from Kirkland & Ellis and Jones Day to lead the Justice Department transition, his camp announced today.
The team will include Kirkland partner Brian Benczkowski, who previously worked for Trump’s recently announced U.S. attorney general pick Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Benczkowski will be joined by Jones Day partner Gregory Katsas and associate James Burnham. Katsas is a former head of the Civil Division and served as acting associate attorney general.
The announcement comes several days after Kevin O’Connor, a former U.S. attorney for Connecticut and the general counsel of investment firm Point72 Asset Management, left as head of the DOJ transition. O’Connor was connected with the community of former U.S. attorneys who served under President George W. Bush, a group that includes New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Trump adviser.
The latest picks to lead the DOJ transition team align with other members of Trump’s inner circle. Before joining Kirkland, Benczkowski was the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Republican staff, serving under Sessions when he was ranking member of the committee.
Benczkowski, who did not immediately return a request for comment, also brings experience at the Justice Department, having served as chief of staff for the Office of the Attorney General and Office of the Deputy Attorney General, and as a top official handling the department’s relationship with Congress. At Kirkland, his practice focuses on litigation and white-collar defense.
Paul McNulty, president of Grove City College and a former deputy attorney general, said Benczkowski had the depth of DOJ experience and connections to be able to spot priority areas for Sessions and other DOJ leadership as they’re brought in.
“He’s been around DOJ a lot. I think he’ll do a wonderful job of working well with the current DOJ leadership because he has the common sense and the cordiality that will go nicely in that role of having to liaison with many different component heads at DOJ,” McNulty said.
At Jones Day, Katsas and Burnham are partners with Donald McGahn II, who served as a top lawyer for Trump’s campaign and is now the general counsel for the transition team. Katsas served in the Justice Department for the entirety of the George W. Bush administration before rejoining Jones Day in 2009.
Burnham has a general litigation practice at Jones Day, and was part of the team that represented former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell in his ultimately successful challenge to public-corruption charges.
Katsas and Burnham did not immediately return requests for comment.
The transition team traditionally splits into two functions, personnel and policy. Part of the team is in charge of finding and vetting candidates for top positions, while the other part of the team evaluates the existing policy and the litigation landscape that the new administration will inherit.
A Trump transition team spokesman told reporters this morning that serving on a transition team is no guarantee of a permanent job in the administration. Benczkowski, Katsas and Burnham are volunteering their services, according to the transition team.
The other members of the DOJ transition team are Bill Cleveland, a former local politician in Northern Virginia and retired U.S. Capitol Police officer who was listed by the transition team as having worked for the Alexandria, Virginia, school system, and Zina Bash, who’s most recent employer was listed as Doctor’s Hospital at Renaissance.
Bash is a former lawyer at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who served as deputy policy director for Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign and worked for the Senate Judiciary Committee. She clerked for Justice Samuel Alito and Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
