[Photo: August Flentje /Google Plus]

Just hours before mounting the biggest defense of the young Trump administration, the Justice Department swapped lawyers.

The U.S. said the 2 top lawyers representing the U.S. would not take part in Tuesday’s hearing, because of their past relationship with one of the world’s biggest law firms, Jones Day. Instead, August Flentje, a longtime Justice Department lawyer, was selected to argue the administration’s case.

The lawyers who stepped aside worked until recently at Jones Day, which filed a brief on Monday opposing the administration’s order to bar U.S. entry to people traveling from 7 majority-Muslim countries. The executive branch doesn’t have “unreviewable authority” to suspend the admission of a class of aliens, Jones Day argued in a brief on behalf of several constitutional scholars.

At least a dozen lawyers have joined the administration from Jones Day, a Cleveland-based firm with 2,500 lawyers in offices around the world. Other Jones Day alumni include Donald McGahn, the White House general counsel. That has raised the possibility of appearances of conflict on a range of matters, including for the 2 attorneys who have until now led the government’s defense of the immigration ban.

The filing put Flentje and Justice Department lawyer Edwin Kneedler atop the list of U.S. lawyers. Flentje has worked for the Justice Department’s civil division for most of his 19-year career there. Kneedler, who has been with the solicitor general’s office since 1979 and served as deputy there for the past 24 years, has argued more than 100 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.