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    White House Counsel's Exit Brings Attention To An Office With A Past

    Don McGahn's tenure was capped by shaping Brett Kavanaugh's fight-back rebuttal against allegations of sexual assault. The office has been a perch for major figures from John Dean to Alberto Gonzales.
    by Ron Elving Oct 21, 2018 5 minutes
    White House Counsel Don McGahn, who departed his post last week, heads into an August meeting with then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. Confirming the newest Supreme Court justice was a capstone on his tenure.

    In a year of news tsunamis, this past week surpassed most. So you may not have noticed the quiet departure of a key player in President Trump's White House.

    Donald McGahn II, the White House counsel, vacated his West Wing office without a news conference or a public send-off. But as counsel to the Trump campaign in 2016, general counsel for the transition and the only White House counsel since, the 50-year-old Washington insider has been integral to some historic proceedings.

    Arguably no one has had more of an impact or done more to advance the Trump agenda. McGahn supervised the process that produced both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the two newest members of the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, McGahn oversaw the vetting of a score of new judges on the powerful

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