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D. John Sauer
American lawyer (born 1974) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Dean John Sauer (/saʊər/; born November 13, 1974) is an American lawyer who has served as the solicitor general of the United States since 2025. He previously served as Solicitor General of Missouri from 2017 to 2023 and represented Donald Trump in his successful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. United States.
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Early life and education
Sauer was born on November 13, 1974, to a prominent St. Louis family in business and politics.[1] He attended Saint Louis Priory School, a Catholic secondary day school for boys in Creve Coeur, Missouri, run by the Benedictine monks of Saint Louis Abbey.
Sauer graduated from Duke University in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. He then won a Rhodes Scholarship to study in England at the University of Oxford, where he earned a second Bachelor of Arts in theology from Oriel College, Oxford, in 1999.[2][3]
In 2000, Sauer obtained a Master of Arts in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. He then entered Harvard Law School, where he was the articles editor of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude in 2004 with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree.[4]
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Legal career
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After law school, Sauer was a law clerk to Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 2004 to 2005 and to U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia from 2005 to 2006.
Sauer worked as a litigation associate at Cooper & Kirk and then became an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.[5]
In the spring semesters between 2011 and 2013, he was an adjunct professor at the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.[6] He later reentered private practice.[5] From 2013 to 2015, he was a partner at Clark & Sauer, LLC.
In 2015, Sauer defended a priest accused of sexually abusing children. Sauer helped the priest sue his accusers and the police officers who were involved.[7] Prosecutors had dropped all charges against the priest, and the priest's record has since been fully expunged.[8][9] Sauer prevailed in the civil lawsuits related to the accusations.[7]
Missouri solicitor general
In January 2017, then-Missouri attorney general Josh Hawley appointed Sauer Solicitor General of Missouri.[10]
On December 10, 2020, as Solicitor General Counsel of Record, Sauer signed the "Motion of States of Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, And Utah To Intervene And Proposed Bill of Complaint In Intervention" in an attempt to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.[11] The motion sought to intervene and join the Texas Bill of Complaint (filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton), to prevent the selection of presidential electors based upon the November election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan.[12]
In January 2023, Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey appointed Sauer Deputy Attorney General for Special Litigation.[13][14] Sauer resigned from his post less than a month later, on January 27, 2023.[15]
In July 2023, Sauer testified before a U.S. House Subcommittee as the Louisiana Department of Justice Special Assistant Attorney General. [16]
Representing Donald Trump
On January 9, 2024, he represented former president Donald Trump in oral arguments before a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit regarding the issue of presidential immunity in the criminal case of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump.[17]
At the hearing, in response to a hypothetical question posed by Judge Florence Y. Pan about whether a U.S. President could order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and be immune from prosecution,[18] Sauer argued that the impeachment clause in Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution[19] implies that the Senate must first impeach and convict before a president can be criminally prosecuted, and that acquittal bars prosecution.[20] Sauer stated that this type of prosecution of a former president "would authorize, for example, the indictment of President Biden in the Western District of Texas after he leaves office for mismanaging the border allegedly".[21]
U.S. solicitor general
In November 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Sauer to serve as solicitor general of the United States.[22] His nomination was confirmed by the Senate on April 4, 2025, by a vote of 52–45.[23] He took office the same day.[24]
In May 2025, Sauer asked the Supreme Court of the United States to include DOGE as a "presidential advisory body" within the Executive Office of the President.[25] Also that month, during a legal case regarding birthright citizenship in the United States, Sauer told the Supreme Court regarding rulings from United States circuit courts that the executive branch "generally respect circuit precedent, but not necessarily in every case".[26]
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References
External links
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