CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Top Trump Lawyer Ditches the White House

The man tasked with making Trump’s power-pushing agenda legally workable is leaving the White House.

President Donald Trump’s top legal adviser David Warrington, who helped push the limits of presidential power, is leaving the White House.

The 80-year-old president announced on Sunday that Warrington would step down as White House counsel, with White House staff secretary Will Scharf—one of the people pushing the White House ballroom project—set to succeed him.

“It is my Great Honor to announce that, effective September 1st, Will Scharf will become Assistant to the President and White House Counsel, replacing a man, David Warrington, who has done a truly outstanding job as White House Counsel and, before that, for my Presidential Campaign,” Trump wrote. “David will be going on to the Private Sector.”

Warrington, Trump’s former personal lawyer, has been among the president’s closest advisers and was part of the small inner circle that huddled with the president in the days before he decided to launch his war on Iran.

The 58-year-old lawyer has been seen as a key enabler of Trump’s second-term power push, advising the president as he invoked emergency powers, deployed troops to U.S. cities, deported migrants against court orders, and unleashed his sweeping tariffs, according to The New York Times.

In May of last year, Warrington, together with then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, gave Trump the green light to accept a $400 million Boeing 747 as a gift from Qatar.

While the Constitution prohibits federal officials from receiving personal gifts from foreign heads of state without the consent of Congress, Warrington and Bondi concluded that the gift was “legally permissible” because it would be handed to the Air Force and later transferred to Trump’s presidential library foundation. They also determined it did not constitute a bribe because the gift did not hinge on an official act.

Chris LaCivita, Trump’s campaign manager, told the Times in September of last year that Warrington “doesn’t lead with the answer, ‘No.’”

“Instead, it’s, ‘Let’s figure out what is in the art of the possible,’” LaCivita said.

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Trump did not say why Warrington was leaving the White House just months ahead of the midterms. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In his Truth Social post, the president praised Scharf, who, like Warrington, served as Trump’s personal attorney.

“I know Will well! He previously represented me in numerous cases, including at the Supreme Court, during the Biden Administration’s corrupt and illegal campaign of Weaponization,” Trump wrote, before touting his background as an attorney and a graduate of Princeton and Harvard.

Trump appointed Scharf, 40, as chair of the National Capital Planning Commission, which has oversight into Trump’s construction projects in D.C., days before Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced plans for the White House ballroom in July last year. The commission has since approved the construction of the $400 million ballroom, as well as the $100 million Triumphal Arch.

Scharf is known around D.C. as “the folder guy” for his role in handing Executive Order folders to Trump during signing ceremonies. He unsuccessfully ran for attorney general in Missouri in 2024.

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Erkki ForsterNight News Reporter

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