White House Counsel Hires 10 Attorneys
Ongoing investigations of the Bush administration by the Democrat-controlled Congress are good news for attorneys seeking work in the White House.
White House Counsel Fred Fielding announced today that his office has hired nine lawyers, five of them for newly created positions, reports the Washington Post. A source says a tenth attorney, Stephen D. Potts, who formerly headed the U.S. Office of Government Ethics for a decade, will be the office’s ethics counsel, the newspaper writes.
Other hires include J. Michael Farren, formerly Xerox Corp.’s general counsel, as Fielding’s deputy, and three attorneys from Fielding’s former firm, Wiley Rein & Fielding. Ivy League and West Point degrees are prominent on the resumes of these and other new attorneys in the counsel’s office, the Post reports. The office will now have a total of 22 lawyers on staff – less than the total number working there during the Clinton administration.
Farren replaces William K. Kelley, who is returning to Notre Dame University to teach after having been caught up in the controversy over the alleged dismissal of at least nine U.S. attorneys for political reasons. Kelley reportedly was involved in some discussions about whether these prosecutors should be dismissed.
