A former legislation clerk to the federal choose who dismissed the categorised paperwork case in opposition to President Donald Trump is now serving within the Justice Division immediately underneath Trump’s former protection lawyer Todd Blanche, who’s now serving because the nation’s number-two legislation enforcement official.
Christopher-James DeLorenz has been serving as a Counsel within the Deputy Lawyer Basic’s workplace since President Trump took workplace in January, in accordance with officers and DeLorenz’s public LinkedIn web page.
DeLorenz served for 10 months as a legislation clerk for U.S. District Decide Aileen Cannon, throughout a interval through which she presided over then-special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump for alleging retaining categorised paperwork after leaving the White Home and obstructing the federal government’s efforts to retrieve them.
In line with his LinkedIn web page, DeLorenz departed Cannon’s workplace in August 2024, only a month after Cannon tossed out the case in opposition to Trump, through which she bucked a long time of authorized precedent by discovering that Smith had been unconstitutionally appointed.
It is unclear whether or not Blanche, who was Trump’s lead legal professional within the categorised paperwork case and took workplace early final month following a slender affirmation by the U.S. Senate, had any direct involvement in DeLorenz’s hiring.
Trump has already staffed the senior-most ranks of the DOJ with attorneys who beforehand represented him in a spread of legal and civil issues, as a part of a broader effort to reassert management over a division that introduced two legal prosecutions in opposition to him after he left workplace in 2021.
Whereas clerking for a district choose is commonly a path to a senior job in an administration, DeLorenz’s place is the primary recognized appointment to the DOJ of a former clerk for Decide Cannon, whose dismissal of the paperwork case handed Trump an enormous political victory.
President Donald Trump crosses the South Garden after exiting Marine One at White Home in Washington, April 6, 2025.
Bonnie Money/Pool/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020, was criticized by quite a few authorized consultants over a number of rulings that helped help Trump’s attorneys’ technique to delay bringing the case to trial.
Neither Decide Cannon’s chambers nor the Justice Division instantly responded to a request for remark from ABC Information.
Cannon beforehand responded to accusations of granting Trump favorable remedy in an order denying a request for her to recuse herself from presiding over the legal case of Ryan Routh, who was charged with making an attempt to assassinate Trump at his golf membership in Florida in September of final yr.
“I’ve by no means spoken to or met former President Trump, besides in connection along with his required presence at an official judicial continuing, by counsel,” Cannon wrote in an October 2024 ruling.
“I’ve no ‘relationship to [Trump]’ in any cheap sense of the phrase. I observe my oath to manage justice faithfully and impartially, in accordance with the Structure and the legal guidelines of this nation,” she wrote.