Francisco had originally been named as the No. 2 in the solicitor general’s office, which represents the federal government in appellate courts. He might be best known as the lawyer who represented former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell last year when the Supreme Court unanimously overturned McDonnell’s conviction on corruption charges.
.. The solicitor general is considered to be one of the nation’s best legal jobs, and the occupant is often referred to as the “10th justice.
.. Jeffrey B. Wall, a veteran of the office who now works for the firm Sullivan & Cromwell, will assume Francisco’s role as principal deputy.
.. representatives of the Trump transition approached U.S. Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — an influential judicial voice on the right — to see whether he would be interested in the job.
.. For a time, there appeared to be two front-runners. One was George T. Conway III, a New York lawyer who received high marks from those in the Supreme Court bar and who is also married to Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway.
.. The other was Charles Cooper, a Washington legal fixture and confidant of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
.. Cooper pulled out of consideration, and the Trump administration expanded its search.
.. he has had to recuse himself from some of the most important cases, such as the legal battle over Trump’s first travel ban executive order, because his law firm Jones Day represented parties in the dispute.
.. Francisco is a former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia
.. Francisco was part of the team that represented President George W. Bush in the 2000 Florida presidential election recount.
.. He was raised in Oswego, N.Y., and both his undergraduate and law degrees are from the University of Chicago.
.. he represented religiously affiliated organizations that said providing contraception services for their female employees would implicate them in sin.
About Roger Stone: (his own site)
In 1978, Stone co-founded the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) where he is credited with developing the negative campaign into an art form and pioneering the modern use of negative campaign advertising which Mr. Stone calls “comparative, educational, not negative.”
.. Stone became known for his expertise and strategies for motivating and winning ethnic and Catholic voters.
.. In 2000 Stone is credited with the hard-ball tactics which resulted in closing down the Miami-Dade Presidential recount.
.. The New York Times and Miami Herald reported it was Mr. Stone who first tipped of the FBI to Governor Eliot Spitzer’s use of prostitutes.
.. Stone has worked for pro-American political parties in Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. He is consulted regularly on communications and corporate and public relations strategy by fortune 500 ECO’s and pro-democracy foreign leaders.
.. “Professional lord of mischief” – Weekly Standard
“Legendary conservative political hit man” – TheHill.com
..
“He [Roger] is one of its fiercest warriors, with the battle scars to prove it.” – The Weekly Standard
“A dragon slayer who helped bring down New York State’s most powerful man” – NY Daily News
“A long history of bare-knuckle politics” – The New York Times
“The GOP’s dapper Pugilist” – The Washington Post
“Seasoned practitioner of hard-edged politics” – The New York Times
“Master Political Strategist and Street fighter” – LeftVoice.com
“The most dangerous person in America today…” – The Village Voice
“Still, Stone gets results” – FirstPost.com, UK
“Skilled in the dark arts of politics” – The Atlantic
.. “Notorious” – Vanity Fair
.. “Master of right-wing political hit jobs… – Politico.com
“Controversial” – The Washington Post
“Infamous” – Gothamist.com
“The dapper don of dirty deeds” – DullardMush.com
“Directly involved in the downfall of Clinton campaign chief strategist Mark Penn” – RADAR
.. “Known for hard-ball politics and a cloak and dagger sensibility” – The New York Times
“At times, Stone’s real party seems to be the vaudevillian rather than the GOP” – New Yorker Magazine
.. “Respected, hated, and always controversial Republican political knife fighter…” – NoQuarterUSA.net
.. “An equal-opportunity trickster” – NY Daily News
“The undisputed master of the black arts of electioneering” – Scotsman.com