Will Scharf
American attorney (born 1986)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
William Owen Scharf (born March 29, 1986) is an American attorney and political operative who has served as the White House staff secretary since 2025.
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March 29, 1986
Will Scharf | |
|---|---|
Scharf in 2025 | |
| White House Staff Secretary | |
| Assumed office January 20, 2025 | |
| President | Donald Trump |
| Preceded by | Stefanie Feldman |
| Personal details | |
| Born | William Owen Scharf March 29, 1986 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Party | Republican |
| Education | |
Scharf graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in history in 2008 and from Harvard Law School with a Juris Doctor in 2011. After graduating from Harvard, he clerked for Judge Raymond Gruender of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Scharf later worked for Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. In 2015, he was hired by Catherine Hanaway's campaign in the 2016 Missouri gubernatorial election to serve as Hanaway's policy director. After Hanaway lost the Republican primary to Eric Greitens, Scharf joined Greiten's campaign in a similar role. He served as Greitens's policy director until Greitens's resignation in June 2018.
Scharf was involved in several Supreme Court confirmations, including those for Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. In June 2020, Scharf joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri as a prosecutor in its violent crimes unit. In January 2023, Scharf announced that he would run in the 2024 Missouri attorney general election as a Republican, seeking to challenge the incumbent Andrew Bailey. In his campaign, Scharf sought to highlight his proximity to former President Donald Trump, whom he had concurrently served as his personal lawyer, and claimed that Bailey had perpetrated corruption in the attorney general's office. Bailey defeated Scharf in the Republican primary in August 2024.
In November 2024, Trump named Scharf as his White House staff secretary. In July 2025, Trump appointed him to serve as the chair of the National Capital Planning Commission.
Early life and education (1986–2011)
William Owen Scharf[1] was born on March 29,[2] 1986,[3] in New York City, New York.[4] Scharf is the son of Fiona and Michael Scharf.[5] Michael worked in private equity.[6] They attended Princeton University, where they were the primary benefactors of Princeton's Chabad house.[5] Scharf was raised in a Modern Orthodox household. He grew up in New York and North Florida.[7] Scharf attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 2004.[4]
Scharf graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in history. At Princeton, Scharf was involved in the Center for Jewish Life and Chabad. He was the president of the Chabad Student Board, the Charter Club, and the Interclub Council. Scharf ran for president of Princeton's student government in 2005, but lost in a runoff election by seventy votes. He was additionally a member of the Princeton Alcohol and Drug Alliance, was the press secretary for Princeton's chapter of College Republicans, and had a column in The Princeton Tory.[5]
In 2008, Scharf was charged with selling alcohol to minors and causing a nuisance. The Princeton Municipal Court later dropped the charges; Scharf threatened to file a civil suit over the incident.[5] Scharf graduated from Harvard Law School in 2011 with a Juris Doctor. He served as the president of Harvard's chapter of the Federalist Society.[4] Scharf told The Wall Street Journal that he chose to attend Harvard believing he would be more accepted as a conservative.[8]
Career
Clerkship and private practice (2011–2015)
After graduating from Harvard University in 2011, Scharf clerked for Judge Raymond Gruender of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.[4] He later worked for Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.[9] Scharf was additionally a teaching fellow at Harvard's Department of Government.[10]
Political work (2015–2020)
In 2015, Scharf began volunteering for Catherine Hanaway's campaign in the 2016 Missouri gubernatorial election.[4] He later joined the campaign as Hanaway's policy director.[9] After Hanaway lost to Eric Greitens in the Republican primary, Greitens asked that Scharf join his campaign.[4] He served in a similar role in Greitens's campaign.[9] After Greitens won the election, he named Scharf as his policy director in December 2016.[11] Scharf served as the vice chair of Greitens's tax-reform committee.[12] As Greitens's policy director, he helped write anti-abortion legislation.[13] In an interview with The Washington Post in March 2026, Scharf stated that he had worked with the Missouri General Assembly to cut the state's historic-preservation tax-credit program, that he had led its real-estate tax-credit programs, and that he had helped designate "opportunity zones" in the state.[14]
In 2018, allegations emerged that Scharf had an affair and had committed campaign finance violations. In May 2018, the Missouri House of Representatives's Special Investigative Committee on Oversight requested that Scharf testify about a memorandum Scharf had written claiming that Greitens had obscured some of his donors.[15] The following month, Greitens resigned amid the possibility of impeachment. Scharf left his administration in June.[9] As a consultant for the Judicial Crisis Network,[9] he worked on the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.[6] Scharf additionally worked for CRC Advisors.[16] In January 2020, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Scharf was a member of a Facebook group advocating for Greitens's return to political office.[17]
Assistant U.S. attorney and private practice (2020–2023)
According to the Riverfront Times, Scharf had been listed in a monthly office birthday list[6] for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri[18] in March 2020;[6] the position that Scharf would eventually seek, an assistant U.S. attorney, had not yet been vacated.[6] He began working in the office in June. Scharf was detailed as the nominations counsel in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Policy to work on Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court confirmation in September.[9] At the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, Scharf worked in the violent crimes unit. A review of Scharf's work by The Guardian in July 2024 found that Scharf largely prosecuted felony firearm possessions and violations of supervised release.[18] Scharf resigned in November 2022.[19] By December 2023, he had joined D. John Sauer's James Otis Law Group.[20]
Missouri attorney general campaign (2023–2024)
In November 2022, the Missouri Independent reported that Scharf was among several names being considered to succeed Eric Schmitt as the attorney general of Missouri if Schmitt were to win that year's Senate election.[21] According to Spectrum News, Governor Mike Parson did not interview Scharf and instead named Andrew Bailey.[22] Scharf resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney that month, he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he was considering a campaign in the 2024 Missouri Attorney General election.[19] On November 30, Scharf announced that he had established an exploratory committee for a campaign in 2024. He worked with the political consulting firm Axiom Strategies.[22] In January 2023, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Scharf had donated US$505,000 to his campaign account and had garnered US$294,000 from over two hundred donors, including Leonard Leo, the co-chairman of the Federalist Society; West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrisey; and Peter Bisbee, the executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association.[23]
On February 1, 2023, Scharf announced that he was running in the 2024 Missouri Attorney General election as a Republican.[7] In August, Donald Trump called Scharf and requested that he join his appellate legal team.[4] Scharf formally joined Trump's legal defense in October.[24] He was involved in Trump's election obstruction case and his subsequent appeal to the Supreme Court.[25] In differentiating himself from Bailey, Scharf cited his connection to Trump and vowed to prosecute machines resembling slot machines outside of casinos. He claimed that Bailey had accepted donations from lobbyists and companies, deeming him responsible for corruption at the attorney general's office.[4] Bailey's campaign accused Scharf of having wealthy donors and noted his affluent background.[26] In March 2024, Scharf received US$500,000 from Club for Growth's federal political action committee and US$1 million from the Concord Fund. The following month, he received three checks totaling US$3 million.[27] Bailey defeated Scharf in the Republican primary on August 6.[28]
White House Staff Secretary (2025–present)
On November 16, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would name Scharf as his White House staff secretary.[29] Scharf's responsibilities included managing executive orders for Trump to sign; The Washington Post described Scharf's role in publicly presenting the orders to Trump as "not only of a lawyer, but something akin to a game show host sidekick".[30] According to Regime Change (2026), Scharf had written confidential memorandums to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles expressing concern about Stephen Miller's efforts to suspend habeas corpus for undocumented immigrants and invoking the Insurrection Act over protests against mass deportation.[31]
In July 2025, Trump named Scharf as the chair of the National Capital Planning Commission.[32] In a public meeting in September, Scharf asserted that the commission lacked the authority to halt the demolition of the East Wing.[33] In April 2026, he voted to approve the White House State Ballroom.[34] In June, Scharf voted to advance the United States Triumphal Arch.[35]
Views
In 2006, Scharf told The Daily Princetonian that he disagreed with former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman's sentiment that the Republican Party should be more moderate. He opposed the nomination of Arizona senator John McCain at the 2008 Republican National Convention, arguing that McCain had "snubbed" the Republican Party on free speech, immigration, judicial appointments, and tax cuts.[5] At a candidate forum in Springfield, Missouri, in May 2024, Scharf stated that he believed that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" and "rigged".[36] In July, he told Missourinet that he believed the Missouri State Board of Education and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education had not done enough for students, accusing the department of being one entity of the "establishment".[37]