Biden names former Alito clerk as White House counsel
Dana Remus. Photo from the Biden transition website.
President-elect Joe Biden has named a former law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. as his White House counsel.
Biden selected Dana Remus for the job, report Law.com, Law360, Politico and a press release.
Remus is a Yale Law School graduate who clerked for Alito and Judge Anthony Scirica of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Philadelphia, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, according to her bio.
More recently, she was general counsel to the Biden campaign, general counsel of the Obama Foundation, deputy assistant to President Barack Obama, and deputy counsel for ethics in the Obama White House.
She was also a law professor at the University of North Carolina, where she specialized in legal and judicial ethics and the regulation of the legal profession.
Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias, who has been working with Remus in a Democratic voter protection effort, praised Remus on Twitter. She is “brilliant, fair-minded and a wonderful person,” he tweeted.
In an interview with Politico, Elias said Remus’ work for the conservative Alito “speaks to the depth of her intellect and the range of experiences she will bring to the job.”
Bob Bauer, formerly White House counsel for Obama, told Politico that the legal advisory process “has come into serious question during the Trump administration.”
Choosing Remus as White House counsel “projects a message about the importance of the legal advisory process, its integrity and its quality,” he said.
