Former Missouri Attorney General candidate Will Scharf is joining President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.
Trump appointed Scharf, who unsuccessfully ran for Missouri attorney general earlier this year, as his White House staff secretary and as an assistant to the president. The staff secretary manages the “paper flow” throughout the White House, and makes sure certain documents are ready for the president to read.
Scharf was one of Trump’s attorneys while he was immersed in a number of criminal and civil legal disputes before he was elected president this month. That included a case before the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled 6-3 that presidents have immunity for official acts but not unofficial ones — and sent an election interference case back to a lower court to sort out.
Scharf worked on that case with John Sauer, a former Missouri solicitor general who Trump named to be U.S. solicitor general earlier this week.
“Will has served as a federal prosecutor, worked diligently to confirm judges and justices during my first term, clerked for two federal appeals court judges, and was an award winning graduate at Harvard Law School and Magna Cum Laude at Princeton,” Trump said in a statement. “Will is going to make us proud as we make America great again.”
In August, Scharf ran against Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey in an expensive and acrimonious GOP primary. Bailey won that contest 63% to 37%.
Before running for attorney general, Scharf served as an assistant U.S. attorney and as policy director for then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. He lives in Clayton.
Bailey was widely seen as a possible candidate for U.S. attorney general, but Trump selected former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz for that post.
