Makan Delrahim

Makan Delrahim was born on November 2, 1969, in Tehran, Iran. His family are Persian Jews, and they immigrated to the United States in 1979.[2] Like many other Iranian Jewish immigrants, Delrahim's family settled in Los Angeles, California.[3] Delrahim became a naturalized U.S. citizen while in law school.[3]

Delrahim initially struggled in elementary school because he did not speak English, but he learned it quickly. His father owned a gas station outside the metropolitan Los Angeles area, at which Delrahim worked part-time.[2] He excelled in high school and was admitted to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), graduating in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science in kinesiology.[2] He also received a Specialization in Business/Economics. He then attended the George Washington University Law School, graduating in 1995 with a Juris Doctor with high honors.[2] Delrahim later earned a Master of Science in biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University in 2002.

While in law school, Delrahim worked at the Office of Technology Transfer at the National Institutes of Health, and on intellectual property issues at the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President. After law school, Delrahim joined the Washington, D.C. law firm Patton Boggs.[2] In 1998, Delrahim became a counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, working under the chairman, Senator Orrin G. Hatch.[2] Delrahim worked on intellectual property and antitrust issues, including patent reform and the investigation into Microsoft. Delrahim later became the Chief of Staff and Chief Counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee, until his appointment at the Department of Justice in 2003. Jon Leibowitz, President Obama's Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, who was previously a Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee aide and worked with Delrahim, remembered him as being creative and a pragmatist.[2]

From 2003 through 2005, Delrahim served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division in the administration of President George W. Bush.[4] While there, he oversaw the Division's International, Appellate and Policy sections and was the Chairman of the Merger Working Group of the International Competition Network.

Delrahim also served as a commissioner on the bi-partisan blue ribbon Antitrust Modernization Commission, serving with former Chiefs of the Antitrust Division, Sanford Litvack and John Shenefield, and ABA Antitrust Section Chair, Jon Jacobson.

After leaving the Department of Justice, Delrahim joined the law firm of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, in Los Angeles, California, where he focused his work on antitrust, intellectual property and appellate matters. His clients included Google, Apple, Anthem Inc., Qualcomm, and Zuffa.[5][6][7]

In March 2016, Delrahim published an op-ed in the New York Post arguing that due to the importance of future U.S. Supreme Court nominations, Republicans should not oppose, and instead should support Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.[8]

After Trump's victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Delrahim was active in Trump's presidential transition. After the inauguration of Donald Trump, Delrahim became Deputy White House Counsel and assisted in shepherding United States Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch through the United States Senate confirmation process.

• DOJ profile
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Inside the Trump White House: Iranian-American Makan Delrahim is Deputy Counsel to the President