A Harvard Law Review editor who is a witness in a government investigation into claims that the legal journal discriminated against white men was hired to a White House role under Stephen Miller.
Last month, the Justice Department sent three letters to Harvard University, informing the school that it was looking into the discrimination allegations against the Law Review, according to The New York Times.
In the second letter, the government revealed that Daniel Wasserman—who was then still an editor at the Review and a student at the school—was a “cooperating witness” in its investigation. The letters demanded that the Law Review rescind its disciplinary action against Wasserman, who downloaded thousands of internal documents.
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While the letters were sent to the university itself, The Harvard Law Review is an independent, student-run journal that publishes legal analysis from scholars. It is the most-cited American law journal.
The Justice Department did not mention in the letters that Wasserman, 28—who graduated on Wednesday—was soon to begin a job in the White House.
The Times has confirmed that Wasserman is reporting to Miller, one of President Donald Trump’s most outspoken and influential staffers. Miller is the architect of Trump’s ongoing mass deportation effort.
America First Legal, an advocacy group founded by Miller, has brought lawsuits with similar allegations of discrimination against white men at NYU and Northwestern, the Times observed.
An unnamed senior Trump official told the Times that Wasserman’s status as a government witness was unrelated to his hiring. The person said that Wasserman’s resumé had already caught the administration’s attention and that Miller did not play a role in the hiring process.
A spokesperson for the White House declined to share details of Wasserman’s hiring—but praised his “bravery.”
“Harvard is violating federal law with its discrimination, and a student was brave enough to call them out on this,” the statement said. “Because of his actions, the Justice Department is investigating clear violations of the law.”
The Times managed to reach Wasserman via the White House switchboard. “No comment,” he said, immediately hanging up. The Daily Beast has reached out to Wasserman at a phone number listed under his name.
Before attending Harvard, Wasserman earned an undergraduate degree from Yale University, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Public records suggest his mother is Carolyn Ballan Wasserman, a New York City attorney who, like her son, attended Yale and Harvard Law. His father appears to be David Wasserman, a private equity investor who graduated from Harvard Business School.
Both Harvard and Yale practice legacy admissions, meaning that students whose parents attended the university receive preferential treatment in admissions.
Trump is in the midst of a fierce battle against Harvard. The government has frozen $3 billion in federal funding to the school and attempted to strip its ability to enroll international students unless it acquiesces to a lengthy list of demands. Harvard is fighting back in court.
The Justice Department announced its investigation into the Law Review shortly after an April article in The Washington Free Beacon, a right-wing news website, that featured internal communications from the journal.
In the messages, the Law Review‘s editors discuss the race of authors who had submitted to the journal—weighing the merits of featuring legal scholars from non-white backgrounds. The Free Beacon wrote that these conversations amounted to a “pervasive pattern of racial discrimination.”
Three insiders told the Times that an internal investigation undertaken by the Law Review determined that Wasserman had downloaded the internal documents. Wasserman was given a formal reprimand and asked to recover and destroy the documents he had downloaded.
In one of its letters to Harvard University, the Trump administration alleged that the Law Review had retaliated against Wasserman and asked him to destroy evidence, according to the Times. It demanded the removal of the reprimand letter from Wasserman’s file and that the journal take back its directive that he not share internal documents.
Out of fear of retaliation from the Trump administration, leaders of the Law Review acquiesced, destroying the reprimand and rescinding its request, the Times reported.
Harvard University and the Law Review did not immediately return the Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
