The Justice Department announced in a court filing on Thursday that Henry Whitaker, a key aide in the Attorney General's office, "is imminently leaving the government for another opportunity."
Whitaker, a veteran litigator, serves as Counselor to the Attorney General — first to Pam Bondi and now to Todd Blanche — and is one of the very few advisers around Blanche with long Justice Department experience, including senior service in the Office of Legal Counsel in President Trump's first administration. Before that he was Florida's Solicitor General from 2021 to 2025, where he won twice at the U.S. Supreme Court; earlier in his career he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas.
His courtroom job made him one of the most consequential lawyers in the department: he was the top attorney defending the administration in the legal challenges over its acting U.S. attorneys — prosecutors installed without Senate approval. He personally represented Alina Habba before the Third Circuit, which ruled she is unlawfully serving as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor, and he led the defence of Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia whose appointment James Comey and Letitia James are fighting in court. Because Whitaker is the government's lawyer in those live cases, the department had to tell the court he is going.
His exit lands the same day Harmeet Dhillon's resignation as head of the Civil Rights Division was confirmed by Attorney General Todd Blanche — two senior Justice Department departures in one day, in the first week after the midterm elections cost Republicans the House and the Senate.
For the public, what is at stake in the fights Whitaker defended is whether criminal cases — including the prosecutions of Comey and James — can be brought by prosecutors the Senate never confirmed. The lawyer who carried that argument for the government is now leaving before the courts have finished deciding it.
📰 ProfiloPolitics Member News — choose your news, share it, earn credit:
https://white-curlew-963569.hostingersite.com
Never miss a story — Join our Telegram channel
Breaking U.S. political news, live as it happens — plus the stories the big outlets sit on.
Join ProfiloPolitics on Telegram