Outgoing White House legislative affairs director Marc Short will be replaced by Shahira Knight later this month, President Trump announced Thursday.
“Shahira Knight will serve as Assistant to the President and Director of Legislative Affairs,” the White House said in a statement. “She brings over two decades of legislative and policy experience to the role.”
Knight worked closely with the legislative affairs team on the GOP tax reform push last fall in her role as deputy director of the National Economic Council. She had planned to leave the White House last month to join Clearing House, a Washington-based lobbying group, but agreed to delay the move while NEC director Larry Kudlow recovered from a recent heart attack.
The White House began discussing the legislative affairs role with Knight soon after Short announced his impending departure, Politico reported Thursday.
Short’s exit comes on the heels of several changes to the president’s tier one staff and Cabinet in the last couple months, including the recent hiring of former Fox News executive Bill Shine as deputy chief of staff for White House communications and the resignation of embattled EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.
“Marc was an integral part of the White House staff,” chief of staff John Kelly said in a statement about Short’s departure. “He and his team helped the president rebuild the military, pass historic tax reform and achieve unprecedented legislative successes. We will miss his profound expertise, commitment to the taxpayers, and leadership.”
News of Short’s exit first broke last month, after he informed colleagues during a meeting that he was on his way out. A Republican close to the White House said Short had grown tired of the long hours and mixed legislative results, and was facing pressure from his wife to leave before the end of the fall midterm elections.
“I will be forever indebted to President Trump and Vice President Pence for the opportunity to join their campaign in 2016 and be part of an administration that has worked with Congress to pass the largest tax relief in American history, to rebuild our military with the largest funding increases since the Reagan years, and to confirm more appeals court judges than any administration in its first two years,” Short said Thursday.
Knight is expected to begin in the coming weeks, just as the administration prepares for a grueling Senate confirmation battle for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Knight’s previously served as a senior staffer on the House Ways and Means Committee and quickly became a go-to expert on tax reform for her White House colleagues last year.
