Eggleston dig:
https://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/w-neil-eggleston-white-house-counsel-105869
Obama picks Eggleston as counsel
By JOSH GERSTEIN and JENNIFER EPSTEIN 04/21/2014 04/21/2014
President Barack Obama has chosen W. Neil Eggleston, a Clinton administration veteran with experience representing government officials in oversight investigations, as his next White House counsel, the White House said Monday.
Eggleston will succeed Kathy Ruemmler, who has led the counsel’s office for close to three years. Officials first confirmed her plans to leave last summer and return to private practice in New York, but she stayed longer at the president’s urging.
“Neil brings extraordinary expertise, credentials, and experience to our team,” Obama said in a statement. “He has a passion for public service, is renowned for his conscientiousness and foresight, and I look forward to working closely with him in the coming years.”
Eggleston is a partner at Kirkland & Ellis and has extensive experience in the kinds of oversight cases that the Obama White House is likely to face more of if Republicans take control of the Senate in November and retain control of the House.
Eggleston served as an associate counsel in Bill Clinton’s White House during the Whitewater hearings, after serving earlier as a deputy chief counsel of the congressional committee that investigated Iran-Contra. After leaving the White House, he represented Clinton in a pair of high-profile court battles over executive privilege.
Obama also used Monday’s announcement as an opportunity to thank Ruemmler, who he said “has become one of my most trusted advisers. I deeply value her smarts, her wit, her impeccable judgment — but most importantly her uncanny ability to see around the corners that nobody else in the room anticipates,” he said. “I will forever be grateful for her service to the country, will continue to seek her counsel, and most of all, I am proud to call her a close friend.”
Following the collapse of the energy trading giant Enron, Eggleston and Ruemmler found themselves — in essence — on opposite sides. Eggleston represented Enron’s outside directors, who faced criticism that they failed to stop the company’s shady financial dealings. Ruemmler was the lead prosecutor on the criminal case that targeted Enron’s management.
In the 1990s, the Clinton White House hired Eggleston to defend executive branch secrecy in two independent counsel investigations: Donald Smaltz’s probe of Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy and Ken Starr’s probe of Whitewater — an inquiry that evolved into an examination of whether Clinton lied under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
Eggleston’s knowledge about executive privilege claims became so renowned that he was retained in 2007 to represent a former political director for President George W. Bush, Sara Taylor, when she became caught up in a fight between the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Bush White House.
Eggleston said Taylor — a protégé of Bush political guru Karl Rove — was willing to testify, but Bush’s direction that she defy a Senate subpoena had put her in an unpleasant squeeze.
“These contrary directions undoubtedly create a monumental clash between the executive and legislative branches of government,” Mr. Eggleston wrote then. “It is unfair to Ms. Taylor that this constitutional struggle might be played out with her as the object of an unseemly tug of war.”
Eggleston also represented former Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel when he was enmeshed in an investigation into former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s efforts to sell the Senate seat Obama left when he became president.
Eggleston, a Northwestern University Law School graduate, clerked for the late Chief Justice Warren Burger and for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
The appointment, which had been rumored for several months, was first reported Monday by The New York Times. It does not require Senate confirmation.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/05/was_obama_hiring_of_criminal_lawyer_due_to_benghazi_emails.html
May 3, 2014
Was Obama Hiring of Criminal Lawyer Due to Benghazi E-mails?
…Is the Obama administration simply gearing up for battle due to myriad unconstitutional and possibly illegal activities? Eggleston will certainly have his hands full after the last six years. Or is the announcement of Eggleston’s new position directly related to the Benghazi e-mails and the murder of four Americans?
The timeline is interesting on this one. Judicial Watch has fought for two years to get documents from the State Departments specifically pertaining to the talking points used by former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on talk shows. A federal judge finally ordered their release two weeks ago. Three days later, Obama hired Eggleston. Eight days later, JW went public with the e-mails.