White Home counsel Dana Remus (left) and Deputy Chief of Employees Jennifer O’Malley Dillon depart the White Home on July 13, 2021. Remus is the “quarterback” of the trouble to appoint a Black girl to serve on the Supreme Courtroom.
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White Home counsel Dana Remus (left) and Deputy Chief of Employees Jennifer O’Malley Dillon depart the White Home on July 13, 2021. Remus is the “quarterback” of the trouble to appoint a Black girl to serve on the Supreme Courtroom.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Pictures
White Home counsel Dana Remus is working across the clock to assist President Biden make historical past — logging hours on the telephones, assembly with Republicans and supervising background checks so he can fulfill his promise to appoint a Black girl to serve on the Supreme Courtroom.
Within the phrases of White Home Chief of Employees Ron Klain, Remus is “the quarterback of this complete course of.”
However, in contrast to a star soccer participant, Remus prefers to function behind the scenes, whether or not she’s shepherding a Supreme Courtroom nomination or finishing up another of her many duties because the White Home’s prime lawyer.
A former regulation professor and ethics professional, Remus has racked up all types of elite credentials: graduating from Harvard and Yale Regulation College, clerking for Supreme Courtroom Justice Samuel Alito, serving within the Obama White Home. Diverging from a few of her D.C. contemporaries, she merely does not broadcast them. In line with that understated way of living and the regulation, she declined an interview request.
Remus breaks the mildew in different methods, too. Democratic presidents have a tendency to decide on judges or luminaries near retirement to function their prime lawyer within the White Home. Remus, although, is 47, with a toddler son at dwelling.
Nonetheless, those that work near her say Remus is the proper particular person for this second. This month, she and her crew are driving the trouble to interchange retiring Justice Stephen Breyer and add the primary Black girl to serve on the excessive courtroom.
Engaged on Biden’s marketing campaign, Remus anticipated Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud
Whereas engaged on Biden’s presidential marketing campaign, Remus met nightly with a bunch of senior legal professionals throughout the run-up to the 2020 election, puzzling over what to do about former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud.
Remus anticipated bother that might delay the vote depend lengthy earlier than Jan. 6, so she briefed senators on how one can defend the legitimacy of the slates of electors coming in from key states and made plans to hurry to courtroom, simply in case.
“A whole lot of the extraordinary threats to the electoral course of we had been speculating about have been rising in actual time earlier than our eyes,” mentioned Don Verrilli, a member of the group. “Dana ran that complete course of with aplomb, and he or she made precisely the proper judgments 100% of the time.”
Generally the group disagreed about what to do. However Remus received, by being well mannered however agency.
“I have been on a name the place she was with three former solicitors basic, and he or she mentioned why we have been all three improper and he or she was proper. And, ‘let’s transfer on to the subsequent query,’ ” former Appearing Solicitor Common Walter Dellinger, who was additionally a part of the group, mentioned in an interview with NPR final week, earlier than his demise.
Dellinger knew eight White Home counsels going again to the Clinton administration and Remus is the “better of the bunch,” he mentioned.
Breaking information on judicial nominations
Her job description includes an enormous portfolio of tasks that touches almost each side of the Biden agenda and includes making fast selections.
Simply this week, Remus wrote to the Nationwide Archives, concluding that the White Home wouldn’t assert government privilege over most customer logs from the Trump period, that are being sought by the Choose Committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots. She identified that the administration already treats most customer logs as public info. And, she mentioned, the Biden crew has decided the Capitol Hill rebel requires “a full accounting to make sure nothing comparable ever occurs once more.”
“I feel what makes White Home counsel, and what makes Dana an ideal White Home counsel, is a mixture of authorized acumen, simply uncooked authorized horsepower, and an understanding of how the federal government works,” Klain, the chief of workers, advised NPR.
Elements of Biden’s agenda have gotten a tricky reception within the courts. And his authorized bid to increase the eviction moratorium drew criticism even from some Democrats.
However Remus and her crew have already damaged information on the decide entrance, steering 40 judges to lifetime appointments of their first yr. Eighty % are ladies and greater than half are individuals of shade.
She’s carefully monitored variety on her personal workers, too. Two-thirds of the counsel workers are ladies, and 40% are individuals of shade, in accordance with spokesman Andrew Bates. Greater than 20% are LGBTQ, Bates mentioned.
President Biden hosts a gathering that features White Home counsel Dana Remus.
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President Biden hosts a gathering that features White Home counsel Dana Remus.
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Throughout the political spectrum: Remus clerked for conservative Justice Alito, and was married by Democrat Obama
Remus is conversant in each the excessive courtroom and the Senate.
She clerked for conservative Justice Alito and taught a category with Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee. However her closest ties are with individuals from the Obama White Home. That is the place she met Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser.
“She was answerable for ensuring that we have been complying with all of our moral guidelines and rules, and President Obama’s directive to Dana was to verify all of us coloured properly throughout the traces,” Jarrett mentioned. “And so I relied on her closely for recommendation and counsel to make sure that we did that.”
Obama officiated Remus’ wedding ceremony in 2018 to a different White Home aide, Brett Holmgren, who’s now working as an assistant secretary of state for intelligence and analysis. Jarrett mentioned Obama carried out marriage ceremonies very hardly ever and that his participation speaks to his respect for Remus as a lawyer — and as an individual.
The ceremony marked one of many few occasions that Remus has attracted tabloid protection throughout her years in Washington. Her mates mentioned legal professionals know they’re doing job when their names aren’t within the newspapers.
