17 Facts About Steven Engel

Steven Andrew Engel was born on June 29,1974 and is an American lawyer.

Steven Engel served as the United States assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel in the first Trump administration.

Steven Engel was raised in Port Washington, New York, and graduated as valedictorian from Paul D Schreiber Senior High School in 1992.

From 1996 to 1997, Steven Engel was a Knox Fellow at the University of Cambridge.

Steven Engel attended Yale Law School afterwards and earned a Juris Doctor in 2000.

Steven Engel then clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, followed by a clerkship under Justice Anthony Kennedy of the Supreme Court of the United States.

In June 2009, Steven Engel became a partner at Dechert, an international law firm.

On January 31,2017, the White House announced that President Donald Trump intended to nominate Steven Engel to serve as the Assistant Attorney General heading the Office of Legal Counsel.

Steven Engel's nomination was opposed by US Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war who was tortured while in captivity.

In November 2017, Steven Engel issued an opinion supporting the President's appointment of Mick Mulvaney as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Vacancies Reform Act.

In May 2019, Steven Engel issued an opinion concluding that the former White House Counsel, Don McGahn, was immune from compelled congressional testimony.

The House Judiciary Committee challenged that decision, and Steven Engel's opinion was rejected by US District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was later nominated by Joe Biden to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

In June 2019, Steven Engel issued an OLC opinion supporting the Justice Department's decision not to release Donald Trump's tax returns.

The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency concluded that Steven Engel's opinion had a "chilling effect on effective oversight" and was "wrong as a matter of law and policy"; urging him to withdraw or modify it.

Steven Engel responded that the opinion had simply applied the law as it was written and that it did not construe the statutory provisions protecting whistleblowers.

On June 23,2022, Steven Engel testified in the fifth public hearing of the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

In May 2021, Dechert LLP announced that Steven Engel had rejoined their law firm as a partner.