Meet Don McGahn, White House Counsel

Click here for an article by Digby at Hullabaloo, entitled "Trump hired Tom Delay's lawyer to give him ethics advice."

Okay, the name "Tom Delay" sets off some alarm bells. Digby says the following:

President Obama tried to warn Trump that he needed to find a White House counsel who would give him strong, unbiased advice and help him navigate these treacherous ethical waters. Trump clearly didn’t listen. In fact he went out of his way to name as his chief counsel one of the most notorious lawyers in Washington, Don McGahn, the man best known as the ethics lawyer to corrupt former House whip Tom “The Hammer” DeLay, a man who pretty much filled the swamp Trump promised to drain. As one of the architects of the “K Street Project,” which strong-armed lobbyists into only hiring Republicans if they wanted to do business with the government, DeLay and McGahn were instrumental in institutionalizing GOP self-dealing and corruption during the Bush years.

McGahn helped DeLay with a Russian pay-to-play scheme and subsequent RICO lawsuit. As the in-house counsel for the National Republican Campaign Committee, McGahn oversaw the raising of more than $625 million between 2000 and 2008 with almost no oversight and no rules. The scheme finally ended when a Republican congressman insisted on an audit and the FBI indicted the treasurer on embezzlement charges.

Naturally, George W. Bush then made McGahn a member of the Federal Election Commission, where he did everything in his power to undermine the campaign finance laws — and succeeded — after which he went to work for the Koch brothers. Of course. In 2016 he joined the Trump campaign, and he will now be White House counsel.

The idea that this man is going to give Trump guidance on how to deal with conflicts of interest in an ethical manner is laughable. His career has been spent counseling his clients on how to do the opposite. Like Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions, it’s yet another example of Trump hiring the worst person in America for the job. It’s almost as if he’s trolling America, just messing with our heads for the fun of it. And like nearly all forms of trolling it’s not funny at all.