People in the news

Norman Eisen

U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic

(Ricky Carioti/TWP)

Why He Matters

While in the Obama White House, Eisen was described as "Mr. No." The career D.C. lawyer who went to Harvard Law School with Barack Obama was the president's ethics guru until December 2010, when Obama flexed his recess muscle and used his executive authority to appoint him U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic.

While Obama's ethics guru, Eisen worked to compile all of Obama's campaign promises about the role lobbyists would play in the White House and turn them into an executive order, one Obama signed the day after taking office.

Read more

Background

At a Glance

Career History: Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform (since January 2009-December 2010) Deputy General Counsel to Barack Obama's transition team (November 2008 to January 2009); Attorney at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP (1991 to 2008)
Birthday: Nov. 11
Alma Mater: Brown University, A.B., 1985; Harvard Law School, J.D., 1991

Spouse: Lindsay Kaplan
Web site

Path to Power

Eisen is a first-generation American. His parents were Holocaust survivors who had an arranged marriage and moved to Los Angeles to run a hamburger stand. "I'm up from the bootstraps," Eisen said, "and I feel a very strong sense of obligation and loyalty to the country that might be old-fashioned."

He graduated from Brown University in 1985 and, like Obama, took three years off to work as a community organizer before going to Harvard Law School, where he met Obama. After graduating from law school, Eisen took a job in Washington with Zuckerman Spaeder, a large, national law firm. He worked there for the next 17 years, handling white-collar and congressional investigations for the firm and eventually becoming a partner.

Read more

The Issues

The scope of Eisen's eithics work in the Obama White House was huge. Obama essentially gave him free rein over all ethics issues in the White House, and staffers know to call Eisen whenever they have a question regarding more than 1,000 pages of ethics regulations.

Eisen's role as the ethics enforcerearned him the names "Mr. No" and "The Fun Sponge." "Norm is not afraid to tell people what they can't do, and it doesn't matter if it's a Cabinet secretary who wants a waiver to hire somebody or a junior staffer who got a Starbucks card for taking someone on a tour," Cabinet Secretary Chris Lu told The Washington Post. "Norm applies the rules fairly, and he is willing to be the bearer of bad news."

Read more

Eisen generally carried with him a personal copy of "5 CFR," the code of federal regulations, which he has annotated and mangled, ripping out pages that don't apply to the White House and crossing out rules he intends to change. He said he made a decision early to prohibit White House employees from accepting small gifts or honorary degrees or awards from lobbyists. "Some of those things are just scams," he said.

He knwq the rules inside out, saying they seeped into his DNA after just a few months of answering question after question from White House staffers. "He's the original propeller-head ethics geek, like something right out of 'The West Wing' TV show," former White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig said. "I don't leave home without Norm on these issues."

Shortly after the 2008 election, Eisen began giving Power Point lectures to everyone who was going to work in the White House, including a 90-minute session with Obama and meetings with Michelle Obama and every cabinet secretary. He gave lectures to as many as 200 people at a time about what was and wasn't allowed. "You're not going to understand all the rules," Eisen said. "So you use your common sense. How's this going to look on the front page of The Washington Post?"

Obama's Executive Order

Eisen wrote the Obama White House code of ethics right after the 2008 presidential election, attempting to codify the new president's promise not to let lobbyists run Washington.

He did so by gathering all the campaign promises Obama made on ethics and compiling them into an eight-page executive order. The order required all appointees of executive agencies to sign a pledge prohibiting them from accepting gifts from registered lobbyists or lobbying organizations and from lobbying on issues "directly and substantially related" to their government service for two years after their employment with the government ends. The order also requires any registered lobbyists who take jobs in the administration to wait two years before working on issues related to their lobbying work.

The Network

Eisen went to Harvard Law School at the same time as Barack Obama and many other administration officials . Former White House Deputy Counsel Cassandra Butts , Cabinet Secretary Chris Lu and Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli were all there at the same time. He works in the White House Counsel 's office with Bob Bauer and his former deputy, Daniel Meltzer .

Campaign Contributions

Eisen was a major fundraiser for Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. He donated more than $40,000 to political campaigns in 2008, including $4,600 to Obama, $2,300 to Joseph R. Biden , and $27,350 to the DNC.

Additional Resources