Docs: Director Of ‘Bipartisan’ Attorneys General Group Proposed An ‘Infiltration’ Of Trump’s 2016 Transition Team
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‘If [Trump] does get elected president, no one will ever have to worry about me wanting to be in any meeting, ever, anywhere, with anyone associated with him.’
The Trump-hating leader of a “bipartisan” state attorneys general organization suggested launching an “infiltration” of his 2016 presidential transition team, according to records obtained by The Federalist. She also expressed opposition to engaging with “anyone associated with” the incoming president.
The remarks in question were issued by Karen White, who serves as the executive director of the nonprofit known as the Attorney General Alliance (AGA). Originally having begun as the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), which sought to promote “collaboration” among the AG offices of western states, the AGA was developed to expand such cooperation nationwide and includes participating offices in 48 states and several U.S. territories.
While left-wing outlets like Axios have “suggested that the alliance had shifted towards the political right in recent years, the group launched an initiative in 2021 to advance left-of-center race issues,” according to InfluenceWatch.
The AGA has become the subject of widespread reporting in recent years for its role in introducing corporate interests to participating attorneys general — often at lavish overseas junkets funded by these entities. Such activities have prompted critics to raise concerns about state AGs wining and dining with companies they could one day be responsible for investigating and/or suing.
For its part, the AGA has disputed such worries and claimed that its events are important for “fostering collaboration and providing educational trainings for … AG members and their staff on complex issues in law and public policy.”
According to her profile on the AGA’s website, White has worked at AGA/CWAG “on behalf of” state attorneys general for more than 25 years. In her role as executive director, she “focuses on developing resources which enhance the Attorneys Generals’ ability to obtain, exchange and utilize information regarding issues of particular importance to the membership,” and aims to develop “programs and seminars, supports communication between and amongst the offices of the member and associate member states, and fosters a broad range of beneficial relationships.”
The records obtained by The Federalist indicate that White had a distaste not only for Trump, but those who “associate” with him. This dislike was so great that White even floated launching an “infiltration” of the Republican president’s 2016 transition team.
The sentiments were expressed in an October 2016 email exchange that White had with whom appear to be several unidentified individuals and Chris Coppin, CWAG’s then-legal director.
In her email, White noted that she has “ZERO relationship with the Trump transition team other than the news that JB Van Hollen is somehow involved there.” Van Hollen served as Wisconsin’s Republican attorney general from 2007-2015 and has gone on to become a leading member of the Democracy Defense Project, “a left-of-center nonprofit formed in 2024 to counter alleged misinformation and election disinformation,” according to InfluenceWatch.