Noel Francisco

With the resignation of Rachel Brand as Associate Attorney General on February 8, 2018, Francisco became the fourth-ranking official in the Justice Department. Francisco received an ethics waiver on April 24, 2018, which relieved him of a previous obligation to recuse himself from any investigation in which his former employer, law firm Jones Day, was involved. Jones Day, which owed Francisco approximately $500,000, represented the Trump presidential campaign in the Special Counsel investigation.

Francisco left Jones Day when he was appointed by President Donald Trump to the position of Principal Deputy Solicitor General for the United States, effective January 23, 2017. He served as the Acting Solicitor General from that date until March 10, 2017.

On March 7, 2017, the White House announced Francisco's nomination to the position of Solicitor General. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 50–47 on September 19, 2017.

In 2005, Francisco moved back to the private sector, joining the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Jones Day, eventually becoming the chair of the firm's government regulation practice. While at Jones Day, he appeared several times before the Supreme Court, including in McDonnell v. United States, which involved the meaning of "official act" under federal bribery statutes; Zubik v. Burwell, which involved the application of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to regulations related to insurance coverage for contraception; and NLRB v. Noel Canning, which involved the Constitution’s recess appointment power. He also argued numerous cases in the lower federal and state courts on a wide range of constitutional, civil, and criminal matters.

In 2001, Francisco was appointed as an Associate Counsel to President Bush in the Office of Counsel to the President. He later moved to the Office of Legal Counsel for the Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the United States Department of Justice, serving in that capacity from 2003 until 2005.

Francisco began his legal career at Cooper, Carvin, & Rosenthal, now known as Cooper & Kirk. He was part of the legal team that worked for George W. Bush on the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election.

After law school, Francisco served as a law clerk for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and then clerked for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1997 term.

Francisco was raised in Oswego and graduated from Oswego High School. He attended Brandeis University for a year, then transferred to the University of Chicago, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in 1991. In 1996, he earned a Juris Doctor degree with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School.

Noel John Francisco (born August 21, 1969) is an American attorney and the current Solicitor General of the United States in the Donald Trump administration. He is the first Asian American confirmed by the United States Senate to hold the position.