Michael Ellis worked for Representative Devin Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee as its general counsel prior to taking a job at the White House earlier this month, according to a White House press release on March 7 that announced his hiring.
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"NSA is 'moving forward' to install Michael Ellis, a former GOP operative, as its top lawyer, the agency said". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on February 9, 2021.
Michael Ellis (born 1984/1985) is an American attorney, Republican political operative, and former government official. He is a visiting fellow for law and technology with the Heritage Foundation 's Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
Michael Ellis, who worked for Nunes for a year as a lawyer on the intelligence committee, is one of the two White House officials who fed Nunes the intelligence files that became the basis of the controversial memo that Patel helped author. Ellis joined the White House in March of 2017 as the deputy counsel to the NSC’s top lawyer, John Eisenberg.
Ellis graduated from Yale Law School in 2011 and has previously worked for Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Amul Thapar of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. He has also worked as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve.
Two White House staffers helped give intelligence reports to Representative Devin Nunes — reports that Nunes says showed President Donald Trump and his associates were incidentally discussed during legal surveillance, the New York Times reports. Michael Ellis, a White House lawyer, and Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at ...
Here’s what you need to know: 1. Ellis Worked for Nunes as General Counsel for the House Intelligence Committee Before Being Hired by the White House. Devin Nunes.
Ellis appeared on the TV game show Jeopardy in 2013 twice, winning once and taking home a total of $18,401, according to the J! Archive. His appearances aired on April 22 and April 23. “It was exciting to win,” Ellis told This Week News, an Ohio newspaper. “”After I got the call, I began studying.
He Is an Intelligence Officer in the Naval Reserve, Got His Undergrad Degree at Dartmouth & Graduated From Yale Law School. Michael Ellis. (Facebook) In addition to his job in the White House, Ellis is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, according to the White House press release.
Ellis graduated from Dartmouth in 2006. While there, he was the editor of the Dartmouth Review and was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He went on to graduate from Yale Law School in 2011. He was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Law & Policy in 2011.
Nunes has told reporters he received a call from a source at the White House the night of March 21 and rushed to meet with the source and to review the documents. He said he needed a sdecure place where he could legally view classified information, so he chose the White House. He gave a briefing to the press about what he uncovered on March 22, and also briefed President Trump at the White House that day before giving a second news conference.
Ellis worked as part of the President Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004.
Michael Ellis serves as Special Assistant to the President, Senior Associate Counsel to the President, and Deputy National Security Council Legal Advisor. Most recently, Mr. Ellis served as General Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Prior to joining the U.S. House of Representatives, Mr. Ellis was a Law Clerk to Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Judge Amul Thapar of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. Earlier in his career, Mr. Ellis served as an Associate Director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. Mr. Ellis is also an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve. Mr. Ellis earned his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and his J.D. from Yale Law School.
On that last point, the New York Times once identified Ellis as one of two White House officials who provided Nunes with “the intelligence reports that showed that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.” That was reported on March 30, 2017. Notably, these Nunes sources were described as “whistleblowers”:
Since disclosing the existence of the intelligence reports, Mr. Nunes has refused to identify his sources, saying he needed to protect them so others would feel safe going to the committee with sensitive information. In his public comments, he has described his sources as whistle-blowers trying to expose wrongdoing at great risk to themselves.
Attorney Michael Ellis started his new job on Monday and his immediate superior is White House lawyer John Eisenberg, according to Politico. The development was described as latest instance of the Trump administration putting loyalists in key roles. Ellis will be privy to extremely sensitive information.
Ellis also featured in the Ukraine scandal, according to testimony heard by the House Intelligence Committee during the impeachment investigation.
Michael Ellis, a Navy Reserve intelligence officer and Yale Law School graduate, was hired as the general counsel at the NSA — a non-partisan career civil service position — during the Trump administration in November 2020.
Nunes said the IG report also found that after then-Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller directed Nakasone to appoint Ellis, he did so but then placed Ellis on administrative leave, citing the need to wait for the results of the IG investigation into whether he was improperly appointed.
The IG report details that you went to great lengths to oppose the hiring of Ellis. The report reveals that former DOD General Counsel Paul Ney told you in an email that some of your concerns about Ellis ‘had no basis in fact ,’ and other concerns ‘appear to be inappropriately injecting partisan politics.’
Nunes told Nakasone the two sources came from Nakasone’s own office. He summarized:
According to CNN and other establishment media reports, Democrats’ concerns were that Ellis allegedly overruled career officials when reviewing former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book for classified information, that he was allegedly in the room when ex-NSC staffer Alexander Vindman reported his concerns about former President Donald Trump’s call to the Ukrainian president, and his alleged role in informing Nunes that U.S. intelligence had swept up Trump’s campaign team during foreign surveillance.
Nunes noted that the allegations of improper political influence of Ellis’s hiring came from anonymous sources to the Washington Post who were “close to” Nakasone.
But last week, the DOD IG concluded there was no wrongdoing associated with Ellis’s hiring at the NSA. The DOD IG’s final report said: “We concluded that there was no improper influence or failure to comply with DoD guidance in the process and decision to select Mr. Ellis as the NSA GC.”