consigliere

plural consiglieri · plural consiglieres

1. A counselor or advisor, especially to Mafia bosses.

   Jared Kushner tried to prevent [Kellyanne] Conway from being invited into the White House at all, because he viewed her “as a possible threat to his role as Trump’s chief consigliere.”

   2017 January 24, Eric Levitz, “Trump Aides Keep Leaking Embarrassing Stories About How He Can’t Handle Embarrassment”, in New York Magazine

   3 more examples

   Tom, I advised Michael. I never thought you were a bad consigliere. I thought Santino was a bad Don, rest in peace. Michael has all my confidence as do you. But there are reasons why you must have nothing to do with what's going to happen.

   1972, Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather, spoken by Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)

   He [Bill Clinton] is the master strategist behind the scenes; the consigliere to the head of “the family,” as some Clinton aides refer to her operation; and a fund-raising machine who is steadily pulling in $100,000 or more at receptions.

   2007 May 13, Patrick Healy, “In New Role, Senator Clinton’s Strategist in Chief”, in New York Times

   What we’re seeing on the climate crisis looks, in other words, wearily familiar: a combination of Boris Johnson’s allergy to taking unpopular decisions, plus a preference for working in what his old consigliere Dominic Cummings calls an atmosphere of chaos, where nobody is entirely sure what their mercurial boss wants or stands for, and thus finds it harder to oppose him.

   2021 August 6, Gaby Hinsliff, “Johnson’s muddle over Covid is a foretaste of his thinking on climate change.”, in The Guardian