Meet the Pentagon’s new top lawyer (for now)
With the New Year’s Day retirement of Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s top lawyer is now Johnson’s former deputy, Robert Taylor. Taylor, principal deputy general counsel and an environmental lawyer by trade, had served as No. 2 to Johnson since the beginning of the Obama administration, in 2009. He will serve as ...
With the New Year’s Day retirement of Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s top lawyer is now Johnson’s former deputy, Robert Taylor.
With the New Year’s Day retirement of Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson, the Pentagon’s top lawyer is now Johnson’s former deputy, Robert Taylor.
Taylor, principal deputy general counsel and an environmental lawyer by trade, had served as No. 2 to Johnson since the beginning of the Obama administration, in 2009. He will serve as acting general counsel, Pentagon press secretary George Little said on Thursday, “until the President nominates a successor to Johnson.” No word on when that might be, or if the president is waiting to pick a new defense secretary before giving him (or her) a new top lawyer.
This is Taylor’s second run at the Pentagon. In the Clinton administration, Taylor served as deputy counsel for environment and installations, working on base realignment and closure (BRAC).
Kevin Baron is a national security reporter for Foreign Policy, covering defense and military issues in Washington. He is also vice president of the Pentagon Press Association. Baron previously was a national security staff writer for National Journal, covering the "business of war." Prior to that, Baron worked in the resident daily Pentagon press corps as a reporter/photographer for Stars and Stripes. For three years with Stripes, Baron covered the building and traveled overseas extensively with the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, covering official visits to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Middle East and Europe, China, Japan and South Korea, in more than a dozen countries. From 2004 to 2009, Baron was the Boston Globe Washington bureau's investigative projects reporter, covering defense, international affairs, lobbying and other issues. Before that, he muckraked at the Center for Public Integrity. Baron has reported on assignment from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and the South Pacific. He was won two Polk Awards, among other honors. He has a B.A. in international studies from the University of Richmond and M.A. in media and public affairs from George Washington University. Originally from Orlando, Fla., Baron has lived in the Washington area since 1998 and currently resides in Northern Virginia with his wife, three sons, and the family dog, The Edge. Twitter: @FPBaron
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