January 30, 2009

Thought on Obama's White House Counsel

Orin Kerr posts a thought from a former Bush Administration on the staffing of Obama's White House Counsel's Office at The Volokh Conspiracy.  It notes a peculiarity,
"Second and more puzzling, the new Counsel's Office will include a non-lawyer research director position -- staffed by a former campaign opposition research specialist. Hopefully journalists will press to find out why this position has been created. It could simply be a mechanism for rapid response on judicial nominations, but it could also signal a desire to run political opposition activity out of the legal shop, which would be very unfortunate."
Hopefully Obama will be pressed for an answer on this staffing decision to shed some light on how he plans to navigate the judicial nomination process.