DOJ Tax Alum, Now D.C. District Judge, Blocks Construction on President Trump's Ballroom (3/21/26)

D.C. District Judge Richard J. Leon, court bio here, a DOJ Tax Alum, is in the news for today having blocked the construction of President Trump’s beloved White House Ballroom. See e.g., ABC News Report here. The opinion is here; the order is here. The opinion starts with the following introduction:

The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner! President Trump ("the President") claims that Congress has given him authority in existing statutes to construct his East Wing ballroom project and to do it with private funds. The plaintiff, the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States ("National Trust"), claims the President has no such authority under existing statutes and that a preliminary injunction is necessary to avoid irreparable harm. I have concluded that the National Trust is likely to succeed on the merits because no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have. As such, I must therefore GRANT the National Trust's Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, and the ballroom construction project must stop until Congress authorizes its completion.

The court bio linked above states Judge Leon’s Tax Division and other DOJ service as follows:

Earlier in his career, Judge Leon served at the U.S. Department of Justice in a number of positions including Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Environment Division, Senior Trial Attorney in the Criminal Section of the Tax Division, and as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York. 

DOJ Tax Alumnus John Dowd Speaks Up for Jack Smith (12/18/25)

John Dowd, a DOJ Tax Alumnus, authored this opinion piece in MS Now:  I was Donald Trump’s lawyer. Jack Smith should be celebrated, not vilified (MS Now 12/16/25), here. 

Of course, every person who has bothered to become informed and is not blinded by bias (ideology, self-promotion, etc.) knows that Jack Smith is a class act. Smith should be able to tell his side of the story in an open public session where everyone participating (Smith and congressmen) can show who they really are.

Dowd also is a class act. Dowd’s Wikipedia page is here.

Great Article on DOJ Tax Alumnus, George Elias (12/16/25)

Florida Bar News has this article: Samadhi Jones, Miami's George Elias nears 99 still practicing, mentoring, and giving back (12/15/25), here.

DOJ Tax relevant excerpts:

At age 23, in his first job out of law school, Elias found himself sitting before the U.S. Supreme Court at the solicitor general’s table on the team that handled treason cases before Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice Hugo Black, et al. Chief Justice Warren himself admitted Elias to the Supreme Court Bar less than two years later. Elias later transferred to the tax division before moving to Miami where he opened a private practice in trust and tax law, a practice that he continues to operate today.

It is not clear to me, but I infer that he may have been first in the SG’s office and then transferred to the Tax Division. If so, that would have been an unusual trajectory to the Tax Division.

There is much more about his life in the article. I highly recommend that DOJ Tax Alumni click the link and read it.

Dennis Donohue Retires from DOJ Tax (9/1/21)

Someone threw over my internet transom an email from the AAG announcing the retirement of Dennis Donohue.  Given the subject matter, I did not think anyone would object to my copying and pasting the contents here:

Dennis Donohue is retiring from his role as Chief Senior Litigation Counsel today.

After graduating with a Masters of Tax Law from George Washington University’s National Law Center, Dennis began his career with the Tax Division in 1971. His original intention was to complete his four-year commitment and then leave for private practice. But he quickly developed a passion for representing the United States in complex tax litigation. Beginning with the first wave of abusive shelters in the 1980s, through the corporate abusive shelters of the 1990s, and continuing to the present day, Dennis successfully litigated numerous cases against some of the most formidable tax litigators in the country. Abusive tax shelter schemes such as Corporate Owned Life Insurance (COLI) and Structured Trust Advantaged Repackaged Securities (STARS) were rejected by the courts as a result of Dennis’s dogged advocacy. Dennis’s efforts over the years brought billions of dollars into the Treasury and contributed to the tax law’s development.

As Chief Senior Litigation Counsel, Dennis was called on to develop and supervise teams of trial attorneys and administrative professionals from across the Division. He worked extensively with the Internal Revenue Service, IRS Chief Counsel's Office and, at times, with other Government agencies. Over his career, Dennis worked with top economists, academics, and other expert witnesses from around the world, resulting in courtroom presentations that distilled complex transactions into understandable concepts. While each team differed based on the nature of the case, they had one thing in common— forming to immediately face top tax practitioners in our nation’s most challenging and sophisticated tax cases.

Dennis has been on the forefront of developing new strategies to present complicated, technical cases to judges and juries throughout his career. His innovative techniques and trial tactics have been adopted by other attorneys to enhance their overall presentation of evidence in court. In the mid-1990s, a new breed of dauntingly intricate shelters surfaced, designed by sophisticated tax professionals for corporations and high-net-worth individuals. These cases often generated millions of pages of documents and thousands of exhibits. Dennis responded by becoming one of the pioneers in presenting evidence electronically and leading the Division to the new frontier of electronic court presentation.

Former AAG Loretta Argrett Gives Talk for Tax Court Diversity and Inclusion Series (3/3/21)

The Tax Court has a Diversity and Inclusion series announced February 12, 2021.  The series is announced on the Tax Court Engagement & Outreach site here.  The first speaker was Loretta Argrett who spoke on 2/24/21.  Here recorded talk is linked on the site and can be directly viewed here.

Readers of this blog will remember the Ms. Argrett previously served as Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division in the Clinton Administration.  Her bio is offered on the Stanford law School Women Trailblazers Project,  here.  The excerpt related to her Tax Division service is:

At the beginning of the Clinton Administration, Ms. Argrett became the Assistant Attorney General, Tax Division, in the Justice Department and was the first African American to serve in that position. She also became the first African American woman in the Department's history to hold a position that requires Senate confirmation. During her six years at the Department, Ms. Argrett actively championed women and recruited them for positions of leadership. She restructured the Division not only to increase its effectiveness and efficiency, but to provide advancement opportunities for legal support personnel, many of whom were African American "single moms." At one point during her tenure at Justice, the three top positions in the Division were held by women.

Article on Mabel Walker Willebrandt, First AAG Tax (11/10/18)

I have just finished reading a wonderful article, William Hoke, Women in Tax Law -- Willebrandt Breaks DOJ Glass Ceiling (Tax Notes Worldwide Tax Daily 11/12/18), here.  (This link may be a temporary link; I have asked Tax Notes for permission to put the article on my Google Docs web site as a permanent link; I have not heard back yet.)  Readers having access to Tax Notes Worldwide Tax Daily may read it before I obtain that permission.

The Hoke article is fascinating with a lot of interesting detail on Willebrandt.  Well written.  Highly recommended.

Hoke cites in the article this "posthumous" interview of Mabel Walker Willebrandt, here, by Jasper L. Cummings, Jr.,a and Alan J.J. Swirski.  Excerpts from this interview:

Mabel Walker Willebrandt headed what became the Tax Division of the U.S. Justice Department from 1921 to 1929. She was famous at the time not for her tax duties but for her duties in enforcing the Volstead Act (Prohibition), which also was handled by her division. She was the second female Assistant Attorney General.*
* See generally Elizabeth K. MacDonald, “The Justice Department and Some Problems of Enforcement:” Mabel Walker Willebrandt, “Prohibition Portia” (posted at Women’s Legal History Project, Stanford University); Mabel Walker Willebrandt, The Inside of Prohibition (1929); Dorothy M. Brown, Mabel Walker Willebrandt: A Study of Power, Loyalty and Law (1984) (which was serialized in the New York Times); The Frederick A. Cook Society website; New York Times obituary, Apr. 9, 1963, at 31; various New York Times Archive articles, including Jan. 11 and 19, 1925, Nov. 17, 1925, Sept. 27, 1928, May 28, 1929, Apr. 15, 1934, and Oct. 22, 1950. 

Q What did you do before you joined the Justice Department?
A I graduated from the law school of the University of California in 1916 and largely defended prostitutes in police court. I served as the first public defender for women in Los Angeles, without pay, and represented over 2000 women. I did become active in Republican Party politics. 

Q Why were you appointed to head Prohibition enforcement?
A Well, as one of my friends said: “Nobody in the Justice Department wanted that job. It had no political  advantages at all. So, of course, they gave it to Mabel.” So I certainly did not seek out that part of the job. Eventually the opposition of the wets kept me from being appointed as the first female federal judge.Q Was there any conflict between your responsibility for Prohibition enforcement and for tax appeals?

A Some would say so. I recall the time I ruled that imported bootleg alcohol could be sold by the  Federal Marshals tax free. Secretary Mellon and the Commissioner were against me on that one and took it up with the Attorney General and Congress. The Times headline said I “overruled Mellon.” 

Q How many cases did you argue in the Supreme Court?
A My office submitted 278 cases on certiorari to the Supreme Court and I personally argued many of them; I am listed on 172 cases. Of course, my staff wrote most of the briefs.

Another Sumner Redstone Article (8/4/16)

Gabe Friedman, Viacom Drama’s Cast of Lawyers (Bloomberg Law 8/3/16), here.

Sumner Redstone: Built a $40 billion media empire, that includes Viacom, which owns MTV and Nickelodeon and also Paramount Pictures and CBS Corp. In 1947, Redstone graduated Harvard Law School and started his career as an appellate lawyer in the tax division of the U.S. Department of Justice. 

“When I got out of law school, I was offered jobs at several major Wall Street firms … I was not interested in either making a lot of money or limiting myself to academics,” Redstone wrote in his 2001 biography, A Passion to Win. 

Instead, he travelled the country and argued 50 or 60 appellate cases at the DOJ, according to the biography.

The link to purchase on Amazon is here.

Tax Division Alumnus in the Tax News (10/27/15)

Yesterday, the Tax Court decided the case of Estate of Redstone v. Commissioner, 145 T.C. 145 T.C. 259, 261 (2015), here.  I post the case here because an alumnus is a player in the drama in the case.  Here is the pertinent quote about his service with the Tax Division:

Sumner [Redstone] graduated from Harvard College in 1944 and Harvard Law School in 1947. He practiced law for several years, including a stint in the Tax Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, before starting work in 1954 for the family business. 

Many of you will recall the name Sumner Redstone.  His Wikipedia entry is here.

The following footnote also appears in the decision:

   n2  Sumner is the petitioner in a companion case, Redstone v. Commissioner, T.C. Dkt. No. 8097-13 (filed Apr. 10, 2013). That case has not been consolidated with the instant case. While the cases share a common factual background, they present different issues.

Law360 Article on Fran Allegra (5/19/14)

Law360 has printed this article on DOJ Tax Alum, Judge Fran Allegra of the Court of Federal Claims.  The Tenacious Technocrat: Judge Francis Allegra (Law360 5/13/14), here.  I won't try to excerpt or summarize the article.  It is relatively short, so I encourage alumni to read it.

I will say along the theme of the article that I assign my tax procedure students one of Judge Allegra's cases to read,  Principal Life Ins. Co. v. United States, 95 Fed. Cl. 786 (Fed. Cl. 2010), here.  See Principal Life -- A Masterpiece of Tax Procedure (Federal Tax Procedure Blog 11/29/13), here.

Judge Leon Enters Prominent NSA Decision (12/17/13)

A DOJ Tax alum has been in the news yesterday, today and presumably for some time in the future.  Richard J. Leon, district court judge in the District of Columbia, entered a decision questioning the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's collection and use of phone records.

According to his court web bio, here, Judge Leon was formerly "Senior Trial Attorney in the Criminal Section of the Tax Division."

For an article on the case, see Charlie Savage, Judge Questions Legality of N.S.A. Phone Records (NYT 12/16/13), here.

Chad Muller is a Nominee for Tax Analysts Person of the Year (1/4/12)

The Tax Prof Blog reports today that Chad Muller, DOJ Tax Alum, was one of the final nominees for Tax Analysts Person of the Year.  The Tax Prof Blog article is here.  The person receiving the prize was Grover Nordquist.  Personally, I think Chad would have been a better choice.

Congratulations, Chad.

Favorable Article on Rod Rosenstein

This is an interesting article about the apparent refusal by the United States Attorney for Maryland, Rod Rosenstein, to sign an indictment that was thereafter tried in another district and failed to survive a Rule 29 motion.  The facts from A  to Z are a little more complex than that summary would suggest.  Sue Reisinger, Why Didn't the Maryland U.S. Attorney Sign the Lauren Stevens Indictment? (Law.com 6/20/11).  Still, the article is quite favorable to Rosenstein was was formerly principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Tax Division.