Greg Craig out as WH counsel – but guess who his replacement is?

Jake Tapper reports on a WH legal team shake-up:

As has been rumored for months, White House counsel Greg Craig will announce his resignation today, effective at the end of the year, senior administration officials tell ABC News. Craig will be replaced by attorney Bob Bauer, who has served as President Obama’s private attorney. Bauer will start work in December, so as to help create a seamless transition.

Senior administration sources confirmed last night what Craig was denying vehemently as recently as a few weeks ago.

“I have no plans to leave whatsoever,” Craig told the National Law Journal in October. “The rumors that I’m about to leave are false. The reports that I’m about to leave are wrong. I have no plans to leave.”

Bauer, the husband of outgoing White House communications director Anita Dunn, was an aggressive campaign counsel for then-Sen. Obama, crashing a conference call held by the campaign of then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and dismissing complaints by Sen. John McCain’s campaign counsel. He is currently the chair of the Political Law Group of Perkins Coie LLP.

Craig originally headed up White House efforts to close the detainee center at Guantanamo Bay and was one of the driving forces recommending that President Obama sign the executive order in January ordering it shuttered within a year, a deadline that almost certainly will not be met. Inside and outside of the White House Craig has been criticized for this failure, and for not necessarily meshing well with other White House players.

What else do we know about Bob Bauer? Michelle Malkin provides a timely – and troubling – reminder:

I’ll remind you again of Bauer’s handiwork during the 2008 campaign:

*It was Bauer who lobbied the Justice Department unsuccessfully last fall to pursue a criminal probe of American Issues Project (AIP), an independent group that sought to run an ad spotlighting Obama’s ties to Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

*It was Bauer who attempted to sic the DOJ on GOP donor Harold Simmons and sought his prosecution for funding the ad.

*It was Bauer who tried to bully television stations across the country to compel them to pull the spot. All on Barack Obama’s behalf.

Bauer’s specialty is stifling dissent. He’s married to the woman Obama entrusted to lead the campaign to de-legitimize critics in the media.

Disturbing, yes – but shocking? Absolutely not.