Patrick F. Philbin

Patrick F. Philbin is an American lawyer who served as Deputy Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President in the Office of White House Counsel in the Donald Trump administration. He previously served in the Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration. He holds a B.A. in History from Yale University where he graduated summa cum laude in 1989 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1992, magna cum laude, where he was executive editor of the Harvard Law Review. In addition, he received a Diploma in Legal Studies from the University of Cambridge in 1995. Next he worked as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. An investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that Philbin did not commit any professional misconduct and appropriately raised his concerns about the shortcomings of the Bybee opinion. Philbin was "one of the people who started the legal review of the spying program that concluded the program was illegal", and Comey testified that Philbin's career suffered for his support of Comey's intervention between Gonzales and Ashcroft; according to Comey, Vice President Dick Cheney blocked Philbin's appointment to the position of Principal Deputy Solicitor General, denying him the honor of working on behalf of the government before the Supreme Court.

Philbin returned to private practice in 2005,