12 Jones Day Lawyers Take Key Posts in Trump Administration

►John Gore will serve as deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s civil rights division. Gore has worked on and written about antitrust matters in the health care industry. Last year, he represented North Carolina’s higher education system against a challenge to a state law known as the “bathroom bill,” which bans transgender people from accessing restrooms and other public facilities consistent with their gender identities. Gore withdrew from the case earlier this week.

►Chad Readler will serve as principal deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s civil division. A former law clerk to Judge Alan Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Readler serves as chairman of the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools. In 2013, he wrote a guest column for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer that railed against “federal overcriminalization” and noted concerns that the False Claims Act has ensnared contractors who did not intend to defraud the federal government.

►James Burnham will serve as senior associate counsel to the president. At Jones Day, he was part of the team that represented McDonnell in his challenge to public-corruption charges.

►Annie Donaldson will serve as special counsel to Trump and chief of staff to the White House counsel. In the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, she worked for the campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. After Romney’s defeat in the 2012 election, Donaldson worked as an associate at Squire Patton Boggs before leaving in 2014 for Jones Day.

►David Morrell, who will serve as associate counsel to Trump, is a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas. He joined the firm in 2013.

►Michael Murray, who will serve as counsel to the deputy attorney general, is an associate who focuses on appellate litigation. He previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein of Maryland is widely reported as Trump’s pick for deputy attorney general.

►James Uthmeier will serve as special adviser to the secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department. He served in law school as president of the Georgetown Law Republicans and served as a part-time law clerk for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and who clashed with Trump during the GOP primary.

►Stephen Vaden, who joined Jones Day in 2014 after nearly four years at Squire Patton Boggs, will serve as special assistant to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Trump has picked former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue to lead that department.

►Kaytlin Roholt will serve as special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. She clerked for Judge Steven Colloton on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Colloton is one of 21 judges Trump identified on a short list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

►Chaka Patterson will serve as a Cook County assistant state’s attorney and chief of the Civil Actions Bureau in Illinois. Patterson, before joining Jones Day, led the special litigation bureau in the Illinois attorney general’s office and was later an executive at Exelon Corp., one of the largest public utility holding companies in the country.