WASHINGTON — President Obama announced Monday that he was naming W. Neil Eggleston, a veteran lawyer with extensive experience representing government officials in congressional and criminal investigations, as his next White House counsel.
In choosing a veteran of Washington’s recurring oversight wars, the White House may be signaling that it expects the final two years of Mr. Obama’s presidency to be defined by politically charged hearings, demands for information by Republicans in Congress and legal battles over the scope and limits of executive authority.
Mr. Eggleston has also represented businesspeople in complex criminal investigations. Among other things, he was a counsel for Enron’s outside directors.
After working in the White House early in the Clinton administration, Mr. Eggleston entered the private sector.
He represented Federico Peña, then the Clinton administration’s transportation secretary, and later Alexis M. Herman, then its labor secretary, during corruption investigations that ended without any charges being filed.
And in 2001, Mr. Eggleston represented Cheryl D. Mills, a board member of the Clinton presidential library foundation, during a congressional investigation into President Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich, whose former wife had donated to the foundation.
The fortifications begin .. Again..
For the most transparent adminstration ever.
Popcorn futures jumped off the chart.