Trump says Mike Paoletta will return as general counsel at OMB

President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday that he has asked attorney Mark Paoletta to be general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget.

Paoletta, a prominent Washington lawyer, served as legal counsel to former Vice President Mike Pence and later to the Office of Management and Budget in the first Trump administration. In the new administration, he will work with the cost-cutting “Department of Government Efficiency,” led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the president-elect said.

“Mark will work closely with our DOGE team to cut the size of our bloated Government bureaucracy, and root out wasteful and anti-American spending,” Trump said in a statement. “Mark is a brilliant and tenacious lawyer, who worked tirelessly to advance my Agenda in the First Term.”

Paoletta is a close friend of Justice Clarence Thomas and called Thomas “our greatest living American.” He also wrote a book on Thomas. Paoletta represented Thomas’ wife, Virginia “Ginny” Thomas, before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Paoletta is also helping Trump’s transition team with proposed Justice Department policies. He’s been an outspoken critic of the Justice Department, which he called the “most partisan and weaponized agency in history” in a social media post in October.