Senior Council

The Senior Council is the ruling body of the White Council.

Description
The Senior Council consists of seven members. It is responsible for controlling the Wardens and maintaining the order of the general body.

Members wear dark robes with purple stoles.

All of the Senior Council were very dangerous and also protected by details of wardens. Senior Council members all have extensive contacts in the Council in general and centuries of experience and skill to back up enormous amounts of raw strength.

Seats on the Senior Council are awarded geriatrically: a vacant position is offered to the wizard with most years of service to the White Council.

Council politics
There is a traitor with a suspected connection to the Black Council  within the White Council and mostly everyone in the suspect pool is on the Senior Council—and they are all beyond reproach.

Most in the Council know that its justice is blind, especially to annoying things like facts, any one accused of being a traitor would run, like Donald Morgan. A Senior Council member putting up a fight, would mean internal strife in the White Council and that would be disastrous for the Council as a whole. The Council has barely hung on during The War with the Vampire Courts. If it dissolved now due to internal strife created by the traitor and started by setting up Morgan for the murder of one of the Senior Council, that could start a feeding frenzy amongst their enemies, and it could bring about the collapse of the Council.

Merlin presses Joseph Listens-to-Wind to reconstruct the crime of Aleron LaFortier's murder. If Morgan is proven guilty, the Merlin's credibility and power will wane, and if he's undone as leader, that could cause chaos in the supernatural world. Listens-to-Wind says that LaFortier's supporters are demanding justice for murder believing that the Merlin's right-hand-man killed their only friend on the Senior Council. If Morgan is found innocent, it could lead to civil war—the Council must get Morgan even if he's innocent.

Aleron LaFortier took the time to court wizards from Africa and Asia, and small countries that are often considered of less importance. He has convinced them that the Council does not care about them, and that he is their only friend on the Senior Council.

In Turn Coat, after Morgan's trial, there was an enormous outcry from LaFortier's supporters since they suffered the most from the Mistfiend attack. They claim the Merlin ignored their safety. They ignored the fact that the true killer was unmasked. Rumors went out immediately that Morgan and Samuel Peabody were conspiring together and both were killed during an escape attempt. The premise being that wizards are safer if everyone believed the Council acted with swift, deadly power. But the ones behind Peabody, presumably the Black Council, knows the Council killed an innocent man—one the Council's largest military assets. Rashid says that if Morgan had not acted so quickly, both Morgan and Luccio would have been arrested and the Wardens themselves, may have started a civil war.

LaFortier's seat is given to Gregori Cristos rather than Klaus Schneider, who was next in line. Not even near the top of the seniority list, Cristos informed the Merlin that he and his allies would otherwise secede from the Council, according to Ebenezar McCoy.

Official Statement essentially states that it was an act of individuals motivated by profit—there was no conspiracy and there is no Black Council. There was a majority who voted for it: The Merlin, Cristos, Mai, Martha Liberty, and Rashid the Gatekeeper. It is after this that the Grey Council is formed.

Summer Knight
In Summer Knight, one of the Senior Council members, Simon Pietrovich, was killed in the battle at Archangel. They held a vote and Ebenezar McCoy was voted to replace him. At that same meeting, The Gatekeeper proposes that he base his vote on a trial: let Harry fulfill Mab's request and secure safe routes for the Council through Faerie.

Proven Guilty
In Proven Guilty, they execute a teenage boy, a known warlock. He was never taught the Laws of Magic or guided on the proper use of magic. Clearly, The Merlin held the speedy trial and execution in Chicago and invited Harry Dresden with the intention of sending a message to Harry. Harry was once in that position when he was sixteen and was just barely spared. According to Ebenezar McCoy, The Merlin wants Harry stripped of his powers as Warden.

The Senior Council convenes again for a trial against Molly Carpenter. Many of the members are missing due to a battle waging in aid of the Venatori Umbrorum. These missing members would most likely be at least open to giving Molly a chance. Eventually, those missing members return from battle in haste, thanks in part to Michael Carpenter who aided their escape. The Senior Council votes to make Molly apprentice to Harry Dresden, both are under the Doom of Damocles.

Turn Coat
In Turn Coat, one of the Senior Council members, Aleron LaFortier, has been murdered and Donald Morgan is accused of the crime. Four Senior Council members answered Harry's invitation to Demonreach with a promise of presenting an informer: Ancient Mai, Joseph Listens-to-Wind, Ebenezar McCoy, and Rashid the Gatekeeper. While there, they were mainly occupied by giant spiders brought by the traitor.

During Morgan's trial, Samuel Peabody is ousted for the crime and for chemically and alchemically tampering with the minds of many the Senior Council members, through the inks he used for psychic-manipulation. Cornered, Peabody smashes an ink pot on the floor that contains a Mordite infused Mistfiend. The Senior Council members present worked together to contain it. Immediately afterward, the Senior Council began an investigation on the extent of Peabody's psychic infiltration led by: the Merlin, the Gatekeeper, and Listens-to-Wind—through the ranks of the Wardens. And, through the Senior Council itself, its members having to go back over all of their decisions for the past several years.

Members

 * Aleron LaFortier, replaced in Turn Coat by Gregori Cristos.
 * Ancient Mai
 * Arthur Langtry
 * Joseph Listens-to-Wind
 * Martha Liberty
 * Rashid
 * Simon Pietrovich, replaced in Summer Knight by Ebenezar McCoy.