Hoodline: Trump Taps Knoxville Prosecutor Lee, Adkisson for Federal Posts
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on September 16, 2026.
Adkisson’s path to the bench has moved fast. He graduated from Yale Law School in 2018 and completed federal clerkships for D.C. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, Sixth Circuit Judge Amul Thapar, and U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., according to the Alliance for Justice. He currently serves as a special assistant in the White House Counsel’s Office, where he litigated major constitutional cases including Trump v. Slaughter, a case addressing presidential removal authority over executive agency heads, per the Federalist Society. He also assisted the Senate Judiciary Committee during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation hearings.