Whelan's legal career included clerking for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and serving as a deputy assistant attorney general during the George W. Bush administration.
[3] From 1985 until 1986, Whelan worked as a law clerk to United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Judge J. Clifford Wallace.
[3] From 2001 until 2004, Whelan served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, advising the White House Counsel's Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and Departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions.
[4] In 2018, Whelan helped advise his close friend Brett Kavanaugh, a federal judge, in the latter's nomination effort to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
[5] On September 16, Christine Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University in California, accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting and attempting to rape her in the early 1980s when they were teenagers.
[6] Whelan drew considerable criticism when he attempted to defend Kavanaugh, then involved in contentious hearings following his nomination to the Supreme Court.