President Trump on February 11 nominated Jonathan Morrison to be Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

For at least the last 60 years, the White House would issue a press release when the President nominated someone, or announced his intention to nominate someone, and that press release would include a few paragraphs of biographical data about the nominee. This White House doesn’t do that.

It turns out that the Jonathan Morrison, of California, who was nominated this week is the same Jonathan C. Morrison who was listed in the 2020 Plum Book as having been Chief Counsel at NHTSA during the first Trump Administration. Per LinkedIn, he served in that position for three years and three months.

Prior to his service at NHTSA, Morrison was the head of legal and regulatory affairs for the California New Car Dealers Association for eight years, where he worked with the dealers there in dealing with NHTSA and state safety and emissions regulations. (This would have been pretty good prep work for working at the NHTSA legal department.)

The interesting bit is that between leaving NHTSA at the end of Trump term #1 and now, Morrison has been working for Apple, in beautiful Sunnyvale, California.

Occam’s Razor would indicate that Morrison was most likely brought to Apple to work on their well-known Apple Car project, trying to build a self-driving electric vehicle with all of the awesome design elements that Apple is known for. (In-house it was called “Project Titan.”) But the Apple Car was canceled in February 2024 after a decade of work, with most of the 2,000 employees working on the project being shifted over to work on artificial intelligence.

So, when it comes time for Morrison’s hearing before the Commerce Committee, there will be an interesting test. Because in addition to well-designed tech products, Apple is also well-known for the comprehensiveness of the nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) that their employees are required to sign that prohibit them from ever talking about the details of their work. So questions from curious Senators about the Apple Car, or any subsequent work, may be dodged on those grounds.

The Governors Highway Safety Association issued a statement saying that “During his tenure as Chief Counsel of NHTSA during President Trump’s first term, Morrison was a committed public servant who put safety first and worked closely and effectively with GHSA and its members.”

Morrison is a 2001 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and a 2004 graduate of Notre Dame Law School, with a postgrad L.L.M. in international business law from University College, London.

NDA