Joe Biden Then Vice President Joe Biden at the White House on March 16, 2016. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Joe Biden has hired Covington & Burling to provide legal counsel to his presidential campaign, turning to a law firm stocked with prominent veterans of the Obama administration, including former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Leading the firm's work for the former vice president is Robert Lenhard, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission who joined Covington as a partner in 2008. That year, as Barack Obama and Biden prepared to enter the White House, Lenhard oversaw the transition team that reviewed the FEC for their incoming Democratic administration.

A Covington spokesman on Monday confirmed that the firm is advising Biden's campaign but declined to elaborate. Biden launched his latest presidential bid in April, and his first campaign finance disclosure—due July 15—will likely shed light on how much Lenhard and his firm are being paid.

Covington's role advising the Biden campaign makes it the latest major law firm to discover business in the Democratic primary. In a disclosure filed earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren revealed her presidential campaign hired Perkins Coie. Another Democratic primary contender, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, has hired a former Harvard classmate, Jenner & Block partner Previn Warren, as his campaign's general counsel.

Before becoming a Democratic member of the FEC in 2006, Lenhard spent 25 years as an associate general counsel for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of the largest unions for public-sector employees. In that role, he advised the union on state and federal campaign finance rules. Leonard previously represented AFSCME and other labor unions as an associate at the firm Kirschner, Weinberg & Dempsey. In 2011, Lenhard backed former U.S. Sen. John Edwards as a defense witness as the North Carolina Democrat faced campaign-finance charges.

Lenhard Robert Bauer, at left, Donald McGahn and Robert Lenhard (at far right) in 2011. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

In the past decade, Lenhard has donated to several Democratic candidates, contributing more than $3,500 between 2015 and 2016 to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Lenhard has also supported U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, currently the House majority leader, and U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. In 2008, he donated $500 to the campaign of U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who is now in the crowded primary field challenging Biden for the party's presidential nomination.

According to federal campaign finance disclosures, Lenhard did not contribute that same year to Obama's presidential campaign. And he did not contribute to Obama's reelection bid four years later.

In Covington, the Biden campaign has picked a firm filled with lawyers who held top roles in the Obama administration. The firm also has led or participated in various court challenges involving the Trump administration, including a fight against President Donald Trump's effort to end the Obama immigration program that gave a reprieve to children of undocumented immigrants. The Supreme Court will hear the case next fall.

Holder rejoined Covington in 2015 after leading the U.S. Justice Department for six years as the first African American U.S. attorney general. Since his return to the firm, Holder has taken on high-profile internal investigations for tech companies embroiled in controversy, most recently leading the internal investigation into the workplace culture at Uber. Holder had previously been hired by Airbnb to help draft the company's anti-discrimination policy. In 2017, Holder launched the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and has spoken out against efforts to draw election maps harmful to minorities.

Holder is joined at Covington by top aides from his time at the Justice Department, including James Garland, who served as his deputy chief of staff and counselor from 2009 to 2010.

Lanny Breuer, vice chairman of Covington, served as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department's criminal division through the first half of the Obama administration. Mythili Raman, who served as the acting head of the criminal division following Breuer's departure, joined Covington as a partner in 2014 and is now a leader of the firm's white-collar defense group.

Robert Kelner, chairman of the firm's election and political law practice, was until recently the lead defense attorney for former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to federal agents about his discussions with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition. Flynn has since fired his Covington team, for reasons not publicly disclosed, and hired conservative commentator and former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell.

Covington is also home to former Arizona U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, who helped shepherd the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh after Trump picked him to fill a U.S. Supreme Court vacancy. Kyl joined Covington in 2013 after retiring from the Senate, where he was the second-highest ranking Republican.

 

 

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