President Donald Trump has named Will Scharf as the next top White House lawyer, replacing David Warrington, who is “going on to the Private Sector,” Trump wrote in a social media post Sunday.
The change in the office of White House counsel will take place Sept. 1.
Scharf, currently the White House staff secretary, is perhaps best known as the lawyer frequently standing over Trump’s shoulder in the Oval Office when he signs executive orders and explaining their details.
Before that, Scharf, 40, was an unsuccessful candidate for Missouri attorney general in 2024, who also worked as one of Trump’s personal lawyers.
“I know Will well! He previously represented me in numerous cases, including at the Supreme Court, during the Biden Administration’s corrupt and illegal campaign of Weaponization,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.
Trump added that Warrington did “a truly outstanding job” as counsel. The change is the latest example of Trump White House staff — many of whom have had longer tenures than aides in Trump’s first term — increasingly leaving the administration in recent months.
Before being brought on at the White House, Warrington served as Trump’s campaign general counsel during the 2024 election, after joining Dhillon Law Group, the firm owned by the current Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. There, he represented controversial Trump allies like Michael Flynn and Sebastian Gorka.
Scharf has also served since last year as the chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission, a low-profile federal agency charged by Congress with overseeing federal construction projects in the Greater Washington region. In that role, Scharf has expedited several of Trump’s handpicked projects, including the president’s planned White House ballroom, which the commission approved in April.
Scharf has also sped up the commission’s reviews of Trump’s planned triumphal arch, which is expected to be approved by the commission at its next public meeting in September.
Trump, who is seeking to complete the projects before he leaves office in January 2029, has cheered the commission’s swift approvals. The commission historically has taken much longer to review significant changes to the White House and new monuments around Washington.
In his role as the commission’s chairman, Scharf has also argued that the planned 250-foot-arch and other federal projects should not be subject to a federal law that restricts most construction in Washington to a maximum height of 130 feet, a position echoed by the Trump administration but opposed by historic preservationists.
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