The success of Mr. Trump’s presidency, said Nicholas W. Allard, a longtime Washington lawyer and lobbyist who is the dean of the Brooklyn Law School, could hinge in part on Mr. McGahn’s legal advice.
“The challenges facing McGahn are really unique in the history of that office,†Mr. Allard said.
Interviews with more than a dozen associates, as well as an examination of legal filings, portray Mr. McGahn, 48, as an advocate with an impressive command of arcane election law, but also a fiercely competitive and even intimidating man eager to scrap with opponents â€" to “duke it out,†as he once said â€" in pressing the argument that donations of political money are a form of free speech. His Democratic opponents, however, portray him as a master of finding legal technicalities to allow election abuses to go unpunished.
If his record is any guide, Mr. McGahn (pronounced Mc-GANN) will be a fierce proponent of the president’s executive authority to operate independently on a wide range of issues. One key question, however, is how strongly he will push back if Mr. Trump, a man who has defied many norms, seeks to cross into murky legal terrain, a number of associates said.
He may be called on to defend Mr. Trump’s stances on issues like his business empire, his children’s role in his administration, his moves to roll back President Obama’s executive orders, his vow to bring back waterboarding or his threat to impose tariffs on companies moving abroad.
His legal fingerprints can already be seen in a number of positions Mr. Trump has taken since the election. Associates said he was most likely the source, for instance, for Mr. Trump’s assertion in an interview with The New York Times that he could maintain control of his business if he chose to because “the law is totally on my side, meaning the president can’t have a conflict of interest.†Mr. Trump’s contention was apparently based on an exemption for presidents and vice presidents codified by Congress in 1989.
(Mr. Trump said he would disclose a plan for his business holdings this week; he is said to be considering retaining a financial stake but turning over operations to his children.)
One of Mr. McGahn’s first key tests in the White House will no doubt be his advice to Mr. Trump on whom to nominate for the current Supreme Court vacancy. During the campaign, Mr. McGahn helped lead the development of a list of 21 candidates Mr. Trump said he would consider for the court, according to people involved in the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Graphic President-elect Donald J. Trump’s cabinet and top staff are shaping up to be a mix of wealthy Washington outsiders, Republican insiders and former military officers who have been critical of the Obama administration.
> Mr. McGahn, who declined to be interviewed for this article, appears hungry to take on his new role after steering Mr. Trump past legal minefields during the campaign en route to his improbable victory, according to friends and colleagues. He was feeling triumphant as he had lunch a few weeks ago at his blue-chip Washington law firm, Jones Day, with Benjamin Ginsberg, a colleague at the firm who was a mentor to Mr. McGahn when he was starting out in election law. Continue reading the main story “How old were you,†Mr. McGahn asked his mentor, “when you had your first winning presidential campaign?â€
“Forty-nine,†answered Mr. Ginsburg, who was the campaign lawyer during President George W. Bush’s victory in 2000.
“Ha! I’m 48 â€" beat you!†Mr. McGahn responded, according to Mr. Ginsberg.
Mr. McGahn has little public record outside his specialty in campaign finance and election law, but colleagues predict that he will prove a quick study in the wide range of national security, domestic and regulatory issues before his office.
“Don is very smart, he’s very combative, and he’s very dogged,†said Robert Bauer, a former White House counsel under Mr. Obama.
Those qualities worry some Democrats who have tangled with him over the years, particularly during his time, from 2008 to 2013, as a commissioner at the Federal Election Commission.
Ellen L. Weintraub, a longtime Democratic commissioner whose frequent sparring matches with Mr. McGahn became well known in the building, said she hoped he would see his new role as “advising the president to do the right thing.â€
But she said in an interview that she worried that “if he thinks this is just another exercise in ‘how clever can I be in devising ways around the rules,’ that could have unfortunate consequences.â€
Ann M. Ravel, another Democratic commissioner, who joined the panel after Mr. McGahn, said she found it “shocking†that Mr. McGahn would be the president’s top legal adviser. “His record indicates that he’s not particularly concerned about conflicts or ethics issues,†she said.
Mr. McGahn’s admirers, however, chafe at the suggestion that he might become a rubber stamp for Mr. Trump.
“I don’t see any way that Don McGahn is going to be a yes man,†said Bradley A. Smith, a professor in election law at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio, who has worked with Mr. McGahn on election issues. “I’m not sure there are too many good Republican campaign finance lawyers who could have handled Mr. Trump, and Don was able to do that.â€
Until now, Mr. McGahn’s greatest influence came during his time on the election commission, where he made an unusual impression with hair down to his shoulders, a guitar in his office and a vocal determination to change the way the agency worked.
He led the way for the Republican commissioners to effectively block numerous campaign finance inquiries that he believed were unjustified. One involved charges that Mr. Trump himself had violated fund-raising laws during a flirtation with a 2012 run for president.
Democratic rivals accused Mr. McGahn of effectively shutting down enforcement at the election agency almost single-handedly. Mr. McGahn insisted he was fighting to protect the right to free speech â€" including the free flow of political money â€" against government encroachment.
At one hearing at the election commission in 2011, Mr. McGahn ripped the pages out of an election regulation book and tossed the scraps in the air to demonstrate his claim that Democratic commissioners were ignoring their own rules in a case involving ads by American Crossroads, the conservative group founded by Karl Rove. “I just don’t understand how you can do this,†he said.
As an election lawyer for many years at the National Republican Congressional Committee and for conservative groups and politicians facing ethics and fund-raising issues, he earned a reputation as a man who knew every wrinkle in the law in fighting to keep his clients out of trouble.
His clients have included Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader from Texas, who resigned in 2006 under indictment and a cloud of ethics charges; Bob Ney, a former Ohio congressman imprisoned in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal; and, this year, Aaron Schock, the former Illinois congressman who redesigned his congressional office in a “Downton Abbey†style and was indicted last month on charges of misspending about $100,000. (Mr. McGahn is no longer representing him.)
“Everyone in Washington knows that if you have a problem, Don McGahn is the person to call,†said David Bossie, the president of Citizens United, the conservative group that spurred the landmark Supreme Court campaign finance decision of the same name.
Mr. Bossie said he had first suggested to Mr. Trump nearly two years ago that he use Mr. McGahn as his campaign lawyer if he decided to run for president. The two men had never met, but they shared an awkward family connection. Years earlier, Mr. Trump had sued Mr. McGahn’s uncle, Patrick McGahn, a New Jersey lawyer who had worked for him on casino projects before they had a falling out over billings.
Mr. McGahn’s first big prize for Mr. Trump came 10 months ago in the Republican primary contest in New Hampshire, where Mr. McGahn went to court to fight efforts to keep Mr. Trump off the ballot on procedural grounds.
Mr. Trump stayed on the ballot and went on to a resounding win â€" the first in a series of victories that ultimately vaulted him to the White House.
At a victory party in Manchester, Mr. Trump pledged to “knock the hell out of ISIS†and declared that “I am going to be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.†Standing right behind him, silent but smiling, was Don McGahn.
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