1. White House Office · Notable
Prepare recommendations to reverse the prior Administration's litigation positions
Printed page 28 1. White House Office
“To offer guidance, the White House Counsel must get up to speed as quickly as possible on all significant ongoing legal challenges across the executive branch that might affect the new Administration's policy agenda and must be prepared at the outset of the Administration to present recommendations to the President, including recommendations for reconsidering or reversing positions of the previous Administration in any significant litigation.”
What has happened
- Partially done
Executive Order 14215 section 7 makes legal interpretations issued by the President or the Attorney General controlling on every executive-branch employee, which is the mechanism the Quote's recommendations would run through: once an interpretation changes, the government's position in litigation changes with it. It has been used that way — OPM removed the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures from federal personnel regulations in July 2026 expressly to conform to a new Office of Legal Counsel opinion, citing section 7. Partial rather than done because the specific act the Quote names — the White House Counsel presenting the President with recommendations to reconsider or reverse positions in significant litigation — is privileged advice and appears on no public record, and no allowlisted source inventories which positions were reversed.
- Attempted
The Attorney General told every Department lawyer that the litigating position of the United States is the President's to set. The 2025-02-05 memorandum "General Policy Regarding Zealous Advocacy on Behalf of the United States" states that the interests of the United States are set by the Chief Executive and that an attorney who declines to sign a brief or refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the administration faces discipline and potentially termination. That is the precondition for reversing a predecessor's positions, not the reversal itself.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Researched 2026-08-27, with Chapter 1’s other White House asks.
The Quote asks for an internal act — the White House Counsel presenting recommendations to the President. Internal advice leaves no public record, so the check is on the mechanism the administration built for displacing the previous administration’s legal positions, and on whether positions were in fact reversed.
- AG memorandum, 2025-02-05, “General Policy Regarding Zealous Advocacy on Behalf of the United States” (justice.gov, read 2026-08-27): the interests of the United States “are set by the Nation’s Chief Executive”, and any attorney who “refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Administration” is subject to discipline and potentially termination.
- EO 14215 §7 (2025-02-18) makes the President’s and the Attorney General’s legal interpretations controlling on the executive branch — the mechanism by which a predecessor’s litigating position is displaced government-wide. OPM relied on exactly that clause in July 2026 when it stripped the Uniform Guidelines out of federal personnel regulations to conform to a new OLC opinion (see #109).
- No record was found of the White House Counsel’s recommendations themselves, which is expected: they are privileged.
- Action
- withdraw
- Object
- previous Administration's positions in significant litigation
- ID
- 7