Chad Mizelle

Announced as Trump’s pick for Chief of Staff to the Attorney General

Chad Mizelle is Trump’s pick for DOJ Chief of Staff and Trump’s former Acting General Counsel to Acting Secretary Chad Wolf at DHS. During the first Trump Administration, Mizelle developed close ties to Stephen Miller and together they drafted some of the most hardline anti-immigration and border security policies in recent history. Mizelle is on Miller’s list of “general counsels who will aggressively implement Trump’s orders and skeptically interrogate any career government attorney who tells them their plans are unlawful or cannot be done.” Currently, Mizelle is the Chief Legal Officer of Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner’s investment firm that was raised with $2 billion from “the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund,” the Public Investment Fund, after Kushner, who had a used his role in the Trump White House, seemed to befriend and aid Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Mizelle first worked in the Trump world as an attorney volunteer for the Trump campaign in 2016, reporting what he asserted were illegal voting procedures in Philadelphia. Following this, Mizelle was given a political appointment as Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein in early 2017. During his time under the DAG, DOJ defended Trump’s extreme changes to immigration policy, including its travel ban, known as the “Muslim ban.” The extent of Mizelle’s roles in these policies is not known; however, DOJ calendars obtained by FOIA show that in June 2017 Mizelle met with NumbersUSA Education and Research Foundation, a group that seeks to reduce both legal and illegal immigration. Numbers USA is one of three anti-immigration organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center dubbed “The Nativist Lobby” that “have the ear of conservative politicians all over the country, and their efforts have inspired many of the hard-line federal, state and local initiatives cracking down on immigrants and immigration.”

The following year, Mizelle moved over to the White House as Associate Counsel. The scope of his activities in 2018 not publicly known. In 2019, he was tapped to become Deputy General Counsel at DHS, as it was in the midst of controversy over its policies of separating migrant children from their families when caught at the border, caging undocumented immigrants, and more. He moved quickly from that post to Chief of Staff to Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, and then Mizelle became Wolf’s Acting General Counsel, overseeing a staff of over 2,500 attorneys. At the time of his appointment, American Oversight Executive Director, Austin Evers noted “By putting a lawyer with little overall experience and no direct experience [into the role of general counsel of the DHS], it is reasonable to conclude that his qualifications are … loyalty to the President and his ability to carry out Stephen Miller’s agenda.”

Not long after both of their appointments in November 2019, Mizelle and Wolf met with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an anti-immigration group designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. After the meeting, Mizelle thanked FAIR for reaching out and relayed that Wolf “enjoyed the dialogue.” He then expressed their excitement at working with FAIR and said if they “need anything from [him], please do not hesitate to call.”

After Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Mizelle drafted the Sanctuary for Americans First Enactment agreements, which aimed to hamstring the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Just a few days after Biden took office, a Trump-appointed U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of Texas temporarily blocked the deportation moratorium Biden put in place on his first day in office, claiming the order violated the agreements signed by Texas.

Since the end of Trump’s term, Mizelle has navigated a number of roles within government and the private sector. Jones Day hired Mizelle to be Of Counsel in its government affairs practice in Miami and D.C. That same year, as Leonard Leo was advising Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on judicial selection, DeSantis tapped Mizelle for a Tampa-area judicial nominating commission. Mizelle was also the special guest speaker at the Tampa Bay Catholic Lawyers Guild’s Red Mass, praising the Dobbs case while it was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court in the agenda to overturn Roe v. Wade and federal constitutional protection for access to abortion. In reference to the pending decision, Mizelle exclaimed, “we’re praying for wisdom, [we’re] praying for courage, we’re praying that the Holy Spirit will guide our decisions. And [Dobbs], above all other decisions, is one we need the Holy Spirit to guide us.” Mizelle later joined Kushner’s investment firm. Previously, Mizelle was a Blackstone Legal Fellow for the Alliance Defending Freedom and also clerked for the Bioethics Defense Fund where he worked on abortion bans.

Chad Mizelle is married to Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of Florida and Federalist Society member.

WHAT DOES PROJECT 2025 SAY ABOUT THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Project 2025 calls for politicizing law enforcement and the U.S. judicial system, including:

– Terminating all FBI investigations/activities into Russian collusion, MAGA operatives, January 6th suspects, Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act) violations, and more.

– Curtailing the independence of the FBI, including by eliminating the agency’s General Counsel’s Office and pushing Congress to end the 10-year term for the FBI Director in order to make the FBI Director dependent on the President’s approval–abandoning a key Nixon-era reform.

– Pursuing “legal action” against local District Attorneys and officials that the Administration claims are “refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions.”

– Expanding the investigation of leaks, including using powerful tools to identify records of unauthorized disclosures to the media.

PRECEDING CONTEXT FOR PROJECT 2025

– Trump tried to weaponize DOJ to overturn the 2020 election. Per CNN: “Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Trump’s attempted coup was how he relentlessly tried to weaponize DOJ to nullify President Joe Biden’s victory. The Democratic-run Senate Judiciary Committee investigated Trump’s conduct and concluded in a recent report that he ‘grossly abused the power of the presidency.’”

– Throughout his Presidency, Trump repeatedly called to prosecute his opponents. As reported in Vox: “He told Hillary Clinton that once he won, she’d be ‘in jail.’ He said that John Kerry ‘should be prosecuted.’ He wants Adam Schiff ‘questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.’ John Bolton, he says, should be ‘in jail, money seized.’ James Comey should face ‘years in jail.’” In July 2024, Trump also amplified social posts calling for televised military tribunals of Liz Cheney.

HOW ARE THESE POLICIES POSSIBLE?

– The President largely controls DOJ through the Attorney General, who is removable by the President without cause. DOJ could try to take legal action against local District Attorneys but would likely face challenges.

– Any sense of DOJ’s independence has resulted from presidents following norms that Trump began to unravel and could continue to erode.

– Federal and local prosecutorial discretion (the ability of prosecutors and law enforcement to exercise judgment in which cases and violations to pursue) is a bedrock principle that Trump could deploy to punish those he dislikes and favor what he prefers.