Winston & Strawn Partner Leads Trump’s DOJ Agency Review Team

Winston & Strawn environmental partner Jonathan Brightbill, a veteran of the former Trump administration Justice Department, is spearheading the president-elect’s DOJ review team that’s started holding transition briefings, according to three people familiar with the process.

Brightbill, who was a top deputy at DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, is leading a group, which includes alums from Trump’s prior DOJ, that’s been meeting with career employees at the department this week. The agency review team is collecting information to help draft memos and actions for the department’s new political leaders arriving Jan. 20.

Joining Brightbill is Williams & Connolly partner Sarah Harris, who was a deputy assistant attorney general at DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel in Trump’s first presidency and John Daukas, who was acting head of the Civil Rights Division late in Trump’s prior term, said two of the sources. All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss non-public information.

The initial staffers are volunteers who won’t necessarily reflect who joins the administration. They demonstrate that the president-elect is turning to more established conservative lawyers and DOJ alums to help formulate the agenda at a department he and allies have promised to dismantle.

For his top DOJ posts thus far, including planned attorney general nominee Pam Bondi, Trump has chosen almost entirely from loyalists on his personal legal team rather than prioritizing lawyers experienced at Justice Department headquarters.

A Winston & Strawn source confirmed that Brightbill has taken the volunteer post but stressed that the global firm is nonpartisan and remains his sole employer. Brightbill, who briefly succeeded Jeffrey Clark as DOJ’s top environmental enforcer, now chairs Winston’s environmental litigation and enforcement practice.

Harris, who’s argued five cases before the US Supreme Court as part of Williams & Connolly’s appellate practice, is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Her sister is a politically appointed Criminal Division deputy for the Biden administration. Harris and her firm didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Before joining the prior Trump administration, Daukas was a longtime partner at Goodwin Procter. More recently, he served as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s chief civil counsel for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Agency review teams, which the Trump transition is starting to send to departments across the executive branch, have in prior years reflected a mix of those who later get tapped for senior or mid-level political appointments at the department they’re assigned to and others who don’t go into government after the inauguration.