Trump to nominate White House insider from first term to lead DOJ’s National Security Division

President Donald Trump intends to nominate John Eisenberg, a central figure in the president’s first impeachment, to lead the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

The department announced on Wednesday that Eisenberg, a former Kirkland & Ellis partner, had been tapped to helm the division that handles high-profile terrorism and cyber-espionage cases and oversees some of the government's most powerful surveillance tools.

Eisenberg, one of the longest-serving senior White House officials in Trump’s first term, was the legal adviser to the National Security Council in 2019 when several officials turned to him following a phone call in which Trump urged Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. 

Eisenberg then reportedly helped order the recording of that call into a system used for ultra-secret classified information — an action he denied — and consulted with political appointees at DOJ on how to handle a whistleblower’s complaint about the Ukraine call. The episode sparked Trump’s first impeachment in late 2019.

If confirmed by the Senate, Eisenberg would inherit a division where several career officials were removed in recent weeks. The division also represents the federal government in seeking Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorizations before a secret court.

He is sure to be grilled by senators over his conduct in handling the Ukraine phone call and his stance on FISA’s Section 702, a powerful foreign spying tool previous administrations have argued is integral to national security that is slated for renewal next year.

Eisenberg previously served at DOJ as an associate deputy attorney general and a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas after graduating from Yale Law School.