Trump Aide McCommas Named Justice Department Chief of Staff

White House aide Stuart McCommas is transferring to serve as Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff, taking on what’s become an influential role aligning the Justice Department with the president’s agenda.

McCommas, a deputy White House counsel since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, fills a vacancy that opened when former DOJ Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle stepped down in October. His move to DOJ was announced by administration officials on social media and reported earlier by the Washington Examiner.

He arrives at a moment when Bondi and her senior leadership team have focused on leveraging US law enforcement to advance the president’s political priorities, including investigating Trump’s adversaries and targeting protesters in Minneapolis. Mizelle used this position to become an outsized figure by vocally supporting the president’s aggressive immigration agenda and confrontations with the judiciary.

McCommas was also a White House lawyer in the first Trump administration before joining the law firm McKool Smith.

He had earlier worked as an associate at Paul Hastings and clerked for Judge Alice Batchelder on the Sixth Circuit after graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law.