The Trump-hating leader of a “bipartisan” state attorneys general organization suggested launching an “infiltration” of his 2016 presidential transition team, according to records obtained by The Federalist. She also expressed opposition to engaging with “anyone associated with” the incoming president.
The remarks in question were issued by Karen White, who serves as the executive director of the nonprofit known as the Attorney General Alliance (AGA). Originally having begun as the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), which sought to promote “collaboration” among the AG offices of western states, the AGA was developed to expand such cooperation nationwide and includes participating offices in 48 states and several U.S. territories.
While left-wing outlets like Axios have “suggested that the alliance had shifted towards the political right in recent years, the group launched an initiative in 2021 to advance left-of-center race issues,” according to InfluenceWatch.
The AGA has become the subject of widespread reporting in recent years for its role in introducing corporate interests to participating attorneys general — often at lavish overseas junkets funded by these entities. Such activities have prompted critics to raise concerns about state AGs wining and dining with companies they could one day be responsible for investigating and/or suing.
For its part, the AGA has disputed such worries and claimed that its events are important for “fostering collaboration and providing educational trainings for … AG members and their staff on complex issues in law and public policy.”
According to her profile on the AGA’s website, White has worked at AGA/CWAG “on behalf of” state attorneys general for more than 25 years. In her role as executive director, she “focuses on developing resources which enhance the Attorneys Generals’ ability to obtain, exchange and utilize information regarding issues of particular importance to the membership,” and aims to develop “programs and seminars, supports communication between and amongst the offices of the member and associate member states, and fosters a broad range of beneficial relationships.”
The records obtained by The Federalist indicate that White had a distaste not only for Trump, but those who “associate” with him. This dislike was so great that White even floated launching an “infiltration” of the Republican president’s 2016 transition team.
The sentiments were expressed in an October 2016 email exchange that White had with whom appear to be several unidentified individuals and Chris Coppin, CWAG’s then-legal director.
In her email, White noted that she has “ZERO relationship with the Trump transition team other than the news that JB Van Hollen is somehow involved there.” Van Hollen served as Wisconsin’s Republican attorney general from 2007-2015 and has gone on to become a leading member of the Democracy Defense Project, “a left-of-center nonprofit formed in 2024 to counter alleged misinformation and election disinformation,” according to InfluenceWatch.
After referencing Van Hollen, White expressed hope that “we could all attempt an infiltration of the Trump transition team and try to pass former North Carolina Chief Deputy JB Kelly off” as Van Hollen, whom she described as a “current Trump insider.” “If Trump comes to pass,” White wrote, “it definitely would up the average IQ of the Trump transition team.”
It’s unclear exactly what White sought to accomplish with this proposed “infiltration.”
Now a private attorney, Kelly previously served as general counsel to then-North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who would later go on to become the Tarheel State’s governor (2017-2025). Cooper is currently running for the Democrat nomination for U.S. Senate in the 2026 midterm elections.
In a statement provided to The Federalist, Kelly said that neither White nor anyone affiliated with AGA/CWAG discussed with or approached him about an “infiltration” of the 2016 Trump transition team. He added that he was “not aware of” White’s idea or her suggestion of trying to pass him off as Van Hollen.
Van Hollen did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.
White wasn’t finished with expressing her anti-Trump sentiments, however.
Following her apparent trashing of the Trump transition team’s intelligence, the AGA executive director told Coppin and Co. that there was “[n]o need for any of you to answer that,” and to “not confuse me with endorsing either candidate.” She subsequently expressed anger at Trump’s “hot mic” comments — an apparent reference to the infamous Access Hollywood tape of Trump making lewd remarks about women — and indicated her opposition to engaging with “anyone associated with him.”
“I am just one very p-ssed off female who happens to have been highly offended by Trump’s [sic] ‘hot mic’ remarks,” White wrote. “So if the man does get elected president, no one will ever have to worry about me wanting to be in any meeting, ever, anywhere, with anyone associated with him.”
Many of the Republican attorneys general who are members of AGA/CWAG have worked in conjunction with Trump in prominent legal matters through the years. More recently, Iowa and 24 other Republican state AGs signed onto an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court that supports Trump’s efforts to end so-called “birthright citizenship.”
The records further show Coppin communicating with an unnamed individual (with White copied on the email) that same day, in which he relayed a purported suggestion that “it would be a good idea to combine efforts to reach out to the new administration.” Coppin specified that the idea originated from “General Chin,” which is seemingly a reference to Hawaii’s then-Democrat Attorney General Doug Chin.
(Chin was elected CWAG chair for 2016-2017 and is known for leading the failed legal challenge to Trump 1.0’s travel ban on countries with heightened terrorism-related risks.)
Coppin wrote to the unnamed individual that Chin and White “would like to be part of any meetings with the transition team.” What’s most notable about this email, however, is that the people Coppin identified as members of this “transition team” are Democrats Ken Salazar and Jennifer Granholm — two members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 transition team. The comment indicates Coppin’s apparent belief that Clinton would defeat Trump in the upcoming election.
“[Chin] and Karen would like to be part of any meetings with the transition team: General Chin as the CWAG Chair and Karen because she has a special relationship with two of the transition leaders, Secretary Ken Salazar and Governor Granholm,” Coppin wrote.
The redacted individual acknowledged Coppin’s “assum[ption] it is the Clinton Transition Team,” and wrote, “I will keep that just between us!” The unnamed person furthermore said they would “coordinate as 8 November approaches.”
White declined The Federalist’s request for comment.
American Accountability Foundation President Tom Jones — a known AGA critic — blasted the organization in a statement to The Federalist. He claimed that the AGA “consistently flaunts how infiltrated it is by leaders who hate the president and the agenda the American people voted for,” and further encouraged the Trump administration to “take a hard look at this junket-fueled grant scheme run by a well-known never-Trumper.”
“The AGA’s failed leadership and anti-MAGA bias make it an obvious choice to trim and relocate money to more effective and aligned organizations who don’t make a joke out of programs funded by taxpayers,” Jones said.
