Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Is Trump’s Jewish Lawyer Skirting Ethics Rules With Unusual White House Role?

Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, is playing a strange dual role in a turbulent White House, the New York Times reported yesterday.

A prominent civil litigator, Kasowitz is representing the president in connection with the Russian investigations. But he’s also considering setting up a White House office, and has given advice about the investigation to White House staff.

According to the Times, Kasowitz advised the staffers not to hire their own lawyers.

Writing at the law blog Lawfare, Paul Rosenzweig suggested that that advice could have broken rules of professional conduct for attorneys.

“Perhaps Mr. Kasowitz needs ethics counsel of his own at this juncture,” Rosenzweig wrote.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.