Trump Names His Defense Attorney To DOJ's Number Three Job

President Trump is nominating Washington, D.C., defense attorney Stanley Woodward for associate attorney general, the third-highest position at the Justice Department, which oversees its civil rights, environmental and civil divisions as well as the Office of Justice Programs, which provides grants to state and local anticrime agencies. Woodward is the latest example of Trump’s tapping lawyers who defended him and his allies in criminal cases during the Biden administration. the top three people at the Justice Department will have personally represented Trump in some capacity, reports the Washington Post. Woodward was in private practice during Trump’s first term and rose to prominence when he represented Trump co-defendant and personal aide Walt “Waltine” Nauta in the classified documents case, sitting in federal court alongside Trump.

Trump was accused of hoarding sensitive government materials after he left the White House in January 2021, and he and his co-defendants were charged with obstructing officials’ attempts to retrieve the materials. A judge dismissed the case. Woodward spent the first months of the Trump administration in the White House as an assistant to the president and a senior counsel. He recently started at the Justice Department as a counselor to Attorney General Pam Bondi, a position that does not require Senate confirmation. As associate attorney general, Woodward would be able to weigh in on some of the most divisive social and legal issues in DOJ's portfolio. Under the Trump administration, the civil rights department has emphasized combating what it has characterized as “a scourge of antisemitism” The administration also launched a Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, headed by a political appointee in the civil rights division.