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Brian4Liberty
10-04-2018, 10:32 AM
The Man Behind the Brett Kavanaugh Strategy: Don McGahn (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man-behind-the-brett-kavanaugh-strategy-don-mcgahn-1538594487)
White House counsel shepherds the judge’s Supreme Court nomination, urging him to push back hard on sexual-assault accusations
By Peter Nicholas - Oct. 4, 2018


WASHINGTON—Waiting his turn to testify last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh had a private word with White House counsel Don McGahn, who has been shepherding his Supreme Court nomination. Mr. McGahn cleared the holding room of staff, people familiar with the matter said.

Christine Blasey Ford had just told senators that he sexually assaulted her when they were teens, and White House aides worried her account was compelling. Sitting with Judge Kavanaugh and his wife, Mr. McGahn told him he shouldn’t hold back: When facing the senators he should show his emotions and true feelings about accusations that he said are false, the people said.
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More: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man-behind-the-brett-kavanaugh-strategy-don-mcgahn-1538594487

Brian4Liberty
10-04-2018, 10:54 AM
'The Quiet Man': The Powerful Conservative White House Lawyer In The Middle Of It All (https://www.npr.org/2017/06/06/531337749/the-quiet-man-the-powerful-conservative-white-house-lawyer-in-the-middle-of-it-a)
By Nina Totenberg


By day, Don McGahn is a straight-laced lawyer, but by night, he's a long-haired rocker.

In the White House drama that occupies almost every news day — from the firing of the FBI director, to the Russia probe, to the controversial travel bans — there is one crucial name that hardly ever is mentioned publicly: Don McGahn. He is the White House counsel, the president's official lawyer, and his job description puts him at the center of every legal decision made in the White House.

McGahn is filling some impressive shoes as the president's counsel. Some of the most respected lawyers in the country have served in the job, beginning in 1943 when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the office and appointed as its first occupant Sam Rosenman, a formidable New York lawyer and former judge who moved easily in the corridors of power.

McGahn, in contrast to most of his predecessors, however, is not widely known — even in conservative Republican circles.

Indeed, in some ways he is an odd fit, or at least, like the president he serves, an unconventional one.

Lawyer by day, rocker by night

McGahn's friends joke that he has something of a split personality. By day, a straight-laced lawyer, and by night, a long-haired rocker, the former guitarist for Scott's New Band, which performed all over the Mid-Atlantic states for more than a decade — until Aug. 25 of last year.

That day, two things happened: The Trump campaign announced McGahn as its general counsel, and the band announced it was retiring.
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If there is a single word most frequently used to describe McGahn, it is "iconoclast," defined in multiple dictionaries as a person who attacks settled or cherished beliefs and institutions, a "cynic," "nonbeliever" or "nonconformist."

That is certainly the role he played when Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell chose McGahn to serve as one of three Republicans on the Federal Election Commission, the government agency charged with enforcing campaign-finance regulations. The three Democrats on the FEC soon saw the three Republicans voting in lockstep as never before. The result: a deadlocked commission that didn't enforce much in the way of campaign-finance rules. That, at least, is the view of Democratic Commissioner Ellen Weintraub.

"McGahn came in with the mission of trying to make the agency as ineffective as possible," she said.

McGahn, a libertarian, never tried to hide his antipathy for campaign-finance regulation. In one infamous incident, he became so angry that he literally tore up the agency's rule book and threw the pieces across the table at a Democratic commissioner.

He may have led the charge, becoming chairman of the commission in the process, but even some Democratic election lawyers concede that he was carrying out the wishes of the Republican congressional leadership. Still, he was uncommonly good at exploiting potential loopholes in the campaign-finance law.

Now, he is in charge of dozens of legal issues at the White House, including ensuring that its staff and the president's appointees across government comply with the nation's ethics laws and regulations.
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Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the conservative Federalist Society, responded that McGahn is "the right person to be counsel to the president," because "he has the trust and confidence of Mr. Trump, and that's probably the most important skill or attribute."
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For this story, NPR talked to more than a dozen people, including former White House counsels, officials from the Department of Justice and McGahn's former law partners. Strikingly, most of those who know and like McGahn — even Democratic lawyers — asked not to be quoted by name. The reason? They do business with the White House or the Trump business empire.

Leo is an exception. He points to one of McGahn's signal successes: the appointment and confirmation of now-Justice Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Unlike the rest of the Trump administration rollout, Gorsuch's confirmation process — with Leo as the outside man and McGahn as the inside man — was flawlessly executed, a no-drama affair. And the conservative effect on the Supreme Court will likely be profound.

Indeed, McGahn's job is to supervise not only the selection and vetting of Supreme Court nominees, but also the filling of some 130 judicial vacancies in the lower federal courts. That number is unusually large because Senate Republicans refused to bring to a vote many judicial nominees in the final years of the Obama administration.

The prospect of McGahn's very conservative hand in filling these court seats now sends shivers of horror down the backs of many Democratic lawyers, and some moderate Republicans as well. But so far, McGahn's choices have delighted the GOP conservative base, from social conservatives to big business.
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More: https://www.npr.org/2017/06/06/531337749/the-quiet-man-the-powerful-conservative-white-house-lawyer-in-the-middle-of-it-a

Brian4Liberty
10-04-2018, 11:06 AM
Yes, Kavanaugh was a bad pick for anyone concerned about the 4th amendment.

Who was he a good pick for? What benefits are expected? Now that is more worthy of investigation.

Let’s start out with the person who picked him. Kavanaugh was chosen by Don McGahn. What might his agenda be?

Maybe his past connections would be informative:


Koch Brothers’ Operatives Fill Top White House Positions, Ethics Forms Reveal (https://theintercept.com/2017/04/04/koch-trump-wh/)

If the billionaire Koch brothers turn to the White House for favors, they will see many familiar faces.

Newly disclosed ethics forms reveal that a significant number of senior Trump staffers were previously employed by the sprawling network of hard-right and libertarian advocacy groups financed and controlled by Charles and David Koch, the conservative duo hyper-focused on entrenching Republican power, eliminating taxes, and slashing environmental and labor regulations.
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Donald McGahn, Trump’s campaign attorney turned White House counsel, provided legal services to a range of outside Koch groups working to influence the election. McGahn, through the law firm Jones Day, advised Freedom Partners, as well as i360, the Koch’s big data firm set up to identify and target voters, and Americans for Prosperity, the election advocacy and grassroots lobbying organization run by the Koch brothers. Ann Donaldson, McGahn’s chief of staff, came to the White House from McGahn’s law firm. Her financial disclosure shows that she also provided legal services to Freedom Partners and i360.
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It does seem that McGahn’s history indicates more than anything a desire to enable big money to influence elections. Where would Kavanaugh stand on such issues?

Aratus
10-05-2018, 12:07 AM
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eleganz
10-05-2018, 12:26 AM
'The Quiet Man': The Powerful Conservative White House Lawyer In The Middle Of It All (https://www.npr.org/2017/06/06/531337749/the-quiet-man-the-powerful-conservative-white-house-lawyer-in-the-middle-of-it-a)
By Nina Totenberg

Didn't know McGahn was a libertarian. I heard on a libertarian podcast recently that some libertarian energy policy guys were hand picked to the administration. We also have Larry Kudlow and one of his advisors, which is a well known libertarian economist, I forget her name but made a thread about her when Trump was elected. A lot of her thoughts on the fed echoes RPF.

Aratus
10-05-2018, 12:35 AM
Maybe he is not one with a capital " L "
Or he is by comparison to all the clever
dudes who be inclined to be most totally
autocratic who do more than just like DJT.

Brian4Liberty
10-05-2018, 08:29 AM
Didn't know McGahn was a libertarian. I heard on a libertarian podcast recently that some libertarian energy policy guys were hand picked to the administration. We also have Larry Kudlow and one of his advisors, which is a well known libertarian economist, I forget her name but made a thread about her when Trump was elected. A lot of her thoughts on the fed echoes RPF.

I wouldn’t be so sure that he is really a “libertarian”. Some pundit said that McCain was a libertarian after he died.

Based on the known history, it would be safe to say he has worked and associated with beltway libertarians whose favorite part of liberty is the freedom for big money to effect politics.

dannno
10-17-2018, 09:03 PM
Don McGahn departs as White House counsel Don McGahn's last day as White House counsel was Wednesday, a senior White House official confirmed to CBS News. McGahn had overseen the judicial selection process for Brett Kavanaugh (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brett-kavanaugh-confirmed-to-supreme-court-by-smallest-margin-in-modern-history/) as well as dozens of federal judges.



President Trump had tweeted in August that McGahn would leave (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-says-white-house-counsel-don-mcgahn-to-leave-administration/) after Kavanaugh had been confirmed.