By Steve Neavling
Mark Paoletta, a prominent conservative lawyer and close confidant of Justice Clarence Thomas, is assisting Donald Trump’s transition team in shaping Justice Department policies for a potential return to office, according to two individuals familiar with the matter, Politico reports.
The individuals, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private nature of the transition work, did not specify Paoletta’s exact role beyond his involvement in planning Justice Department policy. Both Paoletta and the Trump transition team declined to comment.
Trump’s transition team is split into two parts: a personnel division and a policy division. New York financier Howard Lutnick leads the personnel side, identifying candidates for top positions in a possible second Trump administration. The policy division, led by Trump’s former small business administrator, Linda McMahon, focuses on defining the administration’s priorities for federal agencies. Paoletta is working with McMahon’s policy team.
Typically, transition teams’ policy planning for the Justice Department includes identifying actions by the outgoing administration that can be quickly reversed. For Trump’s team, this work likely involves reviewing legal memos issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland and considering the reinstatement of Trump-era directives that Garland rescinded. These memos establish wide-ranging rules for the department’s federal prosecutors, affecting areas like the death penalty and corporate accountability.
Paoletta is a seasoned Washington attorney with an extensive government resume, having served in various roles, including in the White House under the George W. Bush and Trump administrations, and as chief counsel for investigations on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
In recent years, he has garnered a reputation as one of Justice Clarence Thomas’s most vocal defenders, particularly as Thomas has faced ethics scrutiny over relationships with wealthy donors. Earlier this year, Paoletta praised Thomas as “our greatest living American” and authored a book about the justice.
In 2022, Paoletta represented Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, Justice Thomas’s wife, in front of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The committee had summoned her to testify after revelations surfaced that she urged Trump’s then-White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to challenge Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
Paoletta has also been a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s Justice Department.
“Biden Harris DOJ is most partisan and weaponized agency in history, protecting Hunter Biden and his real crimes for years and breaking all rules and inventing crimes to go after President Trump and his supporters,” he posted on X on Wednesday.
He also criticized special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump in a post on Oct. 18.
“Biden DOJ is a disgrace,” Paoletta wrote. “This case should never have been brought & when President Trump is re-elected, he should shut this case down on Jan 20th at 12:01 pm.”
Just six days later, Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he would fire Smith “within two seconds” if re-elected.
