Mike Fragosois an experienced legal and policy strategist who represents clients before all three branches of the federal government. Most recently he served as chief counsel to the Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY). He has negotiated consequential legislation, managed successful congressional oversight, and prepared individuals for the most contentious Senate hearings.
As chief counsel to Leader McConnell, Mike was the Leader’s primary legal advisor and managed the “last mile” of any legislation touching on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He ran the 2024 reauthorization of FISA Section 702 and was involved at the highest levels of the appropriations and budget-reconciliation processes. Mike also repeatedly represented Leader McConnell as counsel of record at the Supreme Court. Leader McConnell said of Mike that he’s “equally at home in the high-minded philosophical discourse of the legal community and the urgent pragmatism of congressional dealmaking,” and that he “maintains a firm grasp on the realm of the possible” but “knows which screws to twist.” He observed that Mike “is so exceptionally competent that he often produces from his desk the work that would normally require, literally, teams of outside counsel.”
Mike previously was chief counsel for nominations and constitutional law for the Senate Judiciary Committee under Ranking Member Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC). During this time he advised the Senators on two presidential impeachments, ran multiple policy hearings, and managed the confirmation process for over 80 federal judges, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Chairman Graham described Mike as “a force of nature.”
During the first Trump administration, Mike was deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy where he ran the Department’s efforts in support of judicial nominations and prepared over 100 nominees for Senate hearings.
Mike also served as legislative director to former Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law.
Mike is a fellow at the Ethics & Public Policy Center and a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS). He also serves on the board of directors for the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Mike began his career as a law clerk to Judge Diane Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and as an associate at Kirkland & Ellis.