To navigate legal disputes, Joe Biden relies on low-key advice – Times of India

Washington: The number of election cases is increasing day by day. An obscure federal agency is blocking the president’s transition. Joe. much validity of BidenWin under attack as supporters of Donald Trump riot at the Capitol.
Lawyer donation amidst all the uproar remus There was a voice of peace for Team Biden.
Fighting on multiple fronts as Biden’s top lawyer during the presidential transition, Remus made a lasting impression on his aides with his ability to block noise as he battled legal challenges ahead with screenings of cabinet and judicial candidates. Extended. now, that is white House Consultant.
“You can be in the middle of a hurry and have a conversation with him, and the kind of atmospheric concern doesn’t get in the way of the legal issues you’re dealing with,” recalled Andrew Wright, who worked on the transition. During with Remus. “She’s not nervous, which is always a good thing for a lawyer.”
Remus’s toughest task may lie ahead: guiding Biden as the White House supports efforts to investigate and hold those involved in the January 6 uprising, while avoiding setting a precedent that could undermine the office of the presidency for generations to come.
Colleagues say the president will have to work hard to find a better-suited lawyer for the time being.
His office has helped Biden make legal decisions on pandemic policy, led the administration’s effort to have more judicial nominations to this point than any president since Richard Nixon, and advised that the president’s adult son, How can Hunter Biden go about selling his pictures without him. creating conflicts of interest.
Prior to working for Biden, Remus, 46, spent years in academia as a judicial and ethics specialist, and served as chief ethics attorney during the final 14 months of President Barack Obama’s presidency. His tenure as Biden’s general counsel was his first campaign during the 2020 election.
“I think his credentials and his experience are a clear determination by President Biden after four years of the Trump administration, scandal-filled baffle-a-rama that he is going to empower a first-class lawyer with a strong Tha background in ethics served as his White House counsel,” said White House Chief of Staff Ron Klein.
The work of Remus and his deputies did not come without criticism, including that a majority of Supreme Court justices indicated they would reject any additional extension without authorization from Congress.
Republicans and ethics lawyers have also pitched the White House over the Hunter Biden artwork sale setup. Obama-era Office of the Chief of Government Ethics Walter Schaub has called the art system “the correct mechanism for collecting bribes” to the President.
The road ahead for Remus only becomes more challenging as lawmakers investigating the January 6 uprising press move forward.
Biden has been asked by the Trump administration to approve the release of a vast swath of records as soon as possible, including some that detail the final administration’s internal decision-making process, usually conducted by executive prerogative. is protected. Biden has already approved the release of the first set of documents, a decision Trump is trying to block in court.
Trump argues that the record should be protected by Biden and the courts, and claims that allowing new presidents to open their predecessors’ vaults so quickly would undermine the presidency. It’s a risk Biden is taking that could come back to haunt him in an increasingly acrimonious Washington, should his successor choose to release his papers early.
Biden, directed by Remus, has sought to preserve his ability to defend his privilege, arguing that the extraordinary circumstances of Trump’s attempt to reverse the election results justified giving up the privilege.
Remus, in a letter this month to the National Archives calling for the release of internal Trump documents, said the request was made under “unique and extraordinary circumstances” as “Congress is investigating an attack on our Constitution and democratic institutions. ” She consulted with the Office of Legal Adviser at the Justice Department to prepare her advice for the President.
Neil Eggleston, a White House attorney in the Obama administration, believes Remus’s legal argument is correct. Still, he said the moment is critical for the institution of the presidency.
“Every time a precedent comes up you worry: is it going to be misused in the future?” Eggleston, who hired Remus in 2015 to serve as an Obama White House ethics attorney.
Remus’s work in the White House made an impression on Obama, who hired him to serve as general counsel for the foundation’s post-presidency. Obama served in her marriage to Brett Holmgren, a national security official in his administration. The two, who have a young son, met while working at the Obama White House.
Holmgren is now the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.
In the West Wing, Remus has been able to deliver the message that Biden and top officials don’t always want to hear.
“She’s not one of these lawyers who uses the law to stifle constructive policymaking, and so while she delivers a hard message – in fact we can’t do that – I think people know it Analysis comes from an honest legal place,” said White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice.
Colleagues say that Remus, who was an academic All-American on Crew in his senior year at Harvard, hates the spotlight. He declined to comment for this story.
His friends say that he is extremely loyal. after conservative justice Samuel Alito, for which she clerked, was scrawled in a 2013 Washington Post column after Remus and another former clerk wrote a letter to the editor who clung to her.
Michael Bosworth, a lawyer who worked with Remus in the Office of the White House Counsel in the Obama administration, said she has a talent for seeking diverse opinions because “she really wants to make informed decisions that are right on the facts and right on the law.” ”
In assembling his 33-person team for Biden’s attorney’s office, Remus placed a premium on three qualities: kindness, diversity and the ability to work as a team, officials said. The office is 65% women, 20% LGBTQ+, 40% people of color, and most of them have public interest backgrounds.
White House officials say Remus’s efforts to diversify the judicial bench are one of the least-appreciated early successes for the president, who has made his government more reflective of America as a candidate. Pledge.
More than 70% of those enrolled are women and the majority of choices are people of color. Remus has focused specifically on looking beyond large law firms and prosecutors to find candidates with backgrounds such as public defenders, voting rights petitioners, and other public interest experience.
In the White House, Biden has surrounded himself with senior advisers whom he has known and counted for over the years. Still, White House officials say Remus has managed to break through despite not being in his inner circle.
“She knows that when she walks in, she is there to give him legal advice — not friendship advice, not political advice but legal advice,” Klein said. “I think a certain amount of professional separation in that relationship is a better way to put it.”

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