Trump's Defense Attorneys Get Justice
Although the Matt Gaetz era at Justice never got off the ground, Trump's criminal defense team seems much more certain of confirmation in their respective appointments.
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Justice in Brief
In the District of Minnesota, four people were found guilty of a human trafficking scheme that resulted in the deaths of four people. The defendant would bring Indian nationals to Canada on student visas and then smuggle them into the United States.
In the District of Oregon, an Indian national was indicted for his efforts to send aircraft navigational systems to Russia in violation of the Export Control Reform Act. He falsely stated, when purchasing the items, that they would be used by his company.
In the District of Puerto Rico, two Dominican nationals were sentenced for illegally smuggling American eels from Puerto Rico to the Dominican Republic. The duo raised the eels and, once they reached the appropriate age, took them via boat to the Dominican Republic with the intent to ship them to China.
Trump’s attorneys set to do Justice
Almost as quickly as Matt Gaetz was announced, he withdrew from consideration as United States Attorney General. He found that many Republican Senators would not support him, despite his lobbying efforts, as more information about Gaetz’s sexual activities emerged. Despite the Gaetz nomination’s demise, Trump’s selections for the next tier of Justice Department officials seem solid and certain of confirmation. Three of the four represented the President-elect in some capacity as his criminal defense attorneys. Consequently, they are attorneys first and Trump supporters second. This distinction will be important as coming issues will discuss. For this week, we look at the appointments for Deputy Attorney General, Solicitor General, and United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The Deputy Attorney General handles the Justice Department’s daily operations and possesses the same authorities as the Attorney General. Created in 1950, seven deputy Attorneys General eventually became President with the most recent being Eric Holder, who served as deputy at the end of the Clinton Administration.
President-elect Trump appointed Todd Blanche as Deputy Attorney General. Most recently and famously, Blanche served as chief counsel in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial. He also represented Trump in the Southern District of Florida and DC District cases. Prior to this work, he was a law partner at one of the oldest New York City law firms. In this role, he represented Igor Fruman, who had helped Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to obtain incriminating Hunter Biden documents, and Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign advisor who was found guilty of several fraud-related offenses.
More importantly, perhaps, is that Blanche is a veteran of the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. That office has a unique reputation derived from its culture. It operates at the highest ethical and professional levels. It also operates independently, both politically and professionally. The office is politically independent in that it prosecutes the same cases in the same manner regardless of whether a Republican or a Democrat holds the US Attorney position. The office is professionally independent in that it has the ability to operate apart from Justice Department dictates. Those who begin their criminal legal careers in the office often carry those behavioral norms with them throughout their careers. As a veteran of the office, Blanche learned these values and his work subsequent to his time as a prosecutor indicates he retained them.
One last fact provides some insight into Blanche’s potential approach to his Justice Department role. Until this year, when Blanche bought a Florida home, he had been a registered Democrat. With the home purchase, he became a Republican.
With Blanche comes Blanche’s co-counsel, Emil Bove, to serve as the Associate Attorney General. This position serves as the third-ranking office within the Justice Department. The current office holder, Benjamin Mizer, oversees a collection of Justice Department components, including the Civil Division, Civil Rights Division, the Antitrust Division, and the Tax Division.
Bove joined Blanche to represent President-elect Trump in his criminal cases. During the New York criminal trial, Bove handled the questioning of most witnesses. Like Blanche, Bove began his legal career with the Southern District of New York’s US Attorney’s Office. He worked there nine years from 2012 to 2021. By the time he left, he served as co-chief of the office’s national security unit, overseeing sanction enforcement and export control matters.
Rounding out the appointments of his legal team, President-elect Trump appointed John Sauer as Solicitor General. In this role, Sauer would oversee the section of the Justice Department that handles all United States litigation before the US Supreme Court. This includes many of the major political issues decided by the Court. It also includes cases that define the limits of federal criminal law.
Prior to his appointment, Sauer represented President-elect Trump before the United States Supreme Court arguing that former presidents should have immunity from criminal prosecutions resulting from acts committed while in office. Sauer’s performance was widely praised and clearly resonated with the majority of Justices. He began his legal career clerking for two conservative judges. First he clerked for Judge Michael Luttig, who opposed the position Sauer took before the Supreme Court. Then Sauer clerked for the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Over the next several years, Sauer alternated between private practice and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri. In 2017, he was named Missouri’s Solicitor General. In that role, he wrote Missouri’s brief arguing why the Supreme Court should intervene to prevent certain states Biden won from casting their electoral votes for Biden.
The last of President-elect Trump’s choices was the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. This position is the premier US Attorney post in the United States. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York oversees some of the nation’s most high-profile criminal cases. The office also has a long tradition of non-partisanship. One reason for this long-standing tradition is that every Southern District of New York United States Attorney for the past 50 years previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the office.
President-elect Donald Trump announced that Jay Clayton would be the nominee for United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. If confirmed, he would be the first US Attorney for that office who did not work as an Assistant since President Kennedy appointed Bob Morgenthau in 1961. Clayton has spent the majority of his career working in private practice, representing large corporations. In 2017, then-President Trump selected Clayton to service as chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In this role, he took a relatively hands-off approach to securities regulation.
Clayton did draw some controversy, however, when he became embroiled in the Barr Justice Department’s efforts to replace judicially-appointed US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman. Berman’s exercise of the office’s tradition independence faced opposition from Attorney General Barr and, presumably, President Trump. Barr announced that Berman has resigned his post. Berman disagreed, forcing Barr and Trump to fire Berman. Their plan had been to install Clayton as the United States Attorney. When news of the plan became public, opposition forced Barr to name Audrey Stauss as US Attorney.
The key question from these appointments is what it will mean for federal prosecution during the second Trump presidency. During the campaign Trump identified two main priorities for the Justice Department. First, he wanted the Department to focus on prosecuting violent criminals and illegal immigrants. Second, he wanted the Department to target President Trump’s political enemies, including current Justice Department officials. The group nominated will effectively implement the first priority. Blanche and Bove are both violent crime and national security attorneys. They should not object to those priorities. These cases do not often raise complex legal issues so Sauer’s role as Solicitor General would not have a significant impact other than to defend challenges to the President’s immigration policies.
The second priority, attacking political enemies, poses a more interesting question. All four appointments are serious attorneys and recognize their legal obligations, especially as these obligations relate to their political loyalties. Of the four, Sauer is the most loyal Trump figure but as Solicitor General, has the least amount of influence over targeting Trump enemies. Blanche and Bove both understand the quantum of evidence necessary to initiate and successfully prosecute criminal cases. It is unlikely either would stray from that. Clayton has the least experience criminal experience of all the appointees. As US Attorney, he would have the most influence over the prosecution of Trump enemies but that would be limited to offenses occurring within the Southern District of New York. Clayton will also face staunch resistance from the Assistant US Attorneys in the office, assuming there is not a mass turnover in the office. All of this is to say that none of these appointments will likely enable Trump to more effectively prosecute his political enemies.
The wild card in this is President-elect Trump’s new Attorney General appointment, Pam Bondi. She will oversee all of these, and many other, appointments. Next week’s issue will look at her nomination.
I hope you enjoyed this issue and that it made you stop and think. I would love to hear any comments, questions, concerns, or criticisms that you have. Leave a comment or send a message! Also, if you enjoyed this or if it challenged your thinking, please subscribe and share with others!