Dean John Sauer (born November 13, 1974) is an American lawyer who served as Solicitor General of Missouri from 2017 to 2023 and represented

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

in his successful appeal to the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in '' Trump v. United States''.

Education

Sauer was born on November 13, 1974. He attended

Saint Louis Priory School , image = , address = 500 South Mason Road , city = Creve Coeur , state = Missouri , zipcode = 63141 , country = United States , ...

, a Catholic secondary day school for boys in Creve Coeur, Missouri, run by the

Benedictine , image = Medalla San Benito.PNG , caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal , abbreviation = OSB , formation = , motto = (English: 'Pray and Work') , foun ...

monks of

Saint Louis Abbey The Abbey of Saint Mary and Saint Louis (French: L’Abbaye Sainte Marie et Saint Louis) is an abbey of the Catholic English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) located in Creve Coeur, in St. Louis County, Missouri in the United States. The Abbey ...

. Sauer graduated from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

in 1997 with a double

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

and

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

. He attended then Oriel College at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

on a

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...

and received a Bachelor of Arts in

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

. After earning a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

from the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

, Sauer entered

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

, where he was an articles editor of the ''

Harvard Law Review The ''Harvard Law Review'' is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the ''Harvard Law Review''s 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 ...

''. He graduated in 2004 with a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

, ''

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

''.

Legal career

After law school, Sauer was a

law clerk A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person, generally someone who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial clerks often play significant ...

to Judge

J. Michael Luttig John Michael Luttig ( ; born June 13, 1954) is an American corporate lawyer and jurist who was a U.S. federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006. Luttig resigned his judgeship in 2006 to become general coun ...

of the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in case citations, 4th Cir.) is a federal court located in Richmond, Virginia, with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maryland ...

from 2004 to 2005 and to U.S. Supreme Court justice

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectu ...

from 2005 to 2006. Sauer worked as a litigation associate at Cooper & Kirk and then became an

Assistant United States Attorney An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. Attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gove ...

for the Eastern District of Missouri. He later reentered private practice. In 2015, Sauer defended a priest accused of sexually abusing children. Sauer helped the priest sue his accusers, including the alleged victim's mother. Father Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang had been accused of two separate instances of sexual abuse, but prosecutors eventually dropped all charges in both cases. Sauer prevailed in the civil lawsuits related to the accusations. In January 2017, then- Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley appointed Sauer Solicitor General of Missouri. 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 The 2020 United States presidential election was the 59th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. The Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and the junior U.S. senator from California Kamala Ha ...

. 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. In January 2023, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey appointed Sauer Deputy Attorney General for Special Litigation. Sauer resigned from his post less than a month later, on January 27, 2023. In July 2023. Sauer testified before a U.S. House Subcommittee as the Louisiana Department of Justice Special Assistant Attorney General.

Representing Donald Trump

On January 9, 2024, he represented former President

in oral arguments before a panel of the

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (in case citations, D.C. Cir.) is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. It has the smallest geographical jurisdiction of any of the U.S. federal appellate cou ...

regarding the issue of presidential immunity in the criminal case of ''United States of America v. Donald J. Trump''. 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 The Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG), abbreviated as DEVGRU ("Development Group") and commonly known as SEAL Team Six, is the United States Navy component of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). The unit is often referre ...

to assassinate a political rival and be immune from prosecution, Sauer argued that the impeachment clause in Article II, Section 4, of the Constitution implies that the Senate must first impeach and convict before a president can be criminally prosecuted, and that acquittal bars prosecution. 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".

References

External links

Appearances at the U.S. Supreme Court
from the

Oyez Project The Oyez Project at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Chicago-Kent College of Law is an unofficial online multimedia archive of the Supreme Court of the United States, especially audio of oral arguments. The website "aims to be a complete an ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauer, Dean John 1974 births Living people 21st-century American lawyers American Rhodes Scholars Assistant United States Attorneys Duke University Pratt School of Engineering alumni Harvard Law School alumni Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States Lawyers from St. Louis Solicitors General of Missouri University of Notre Dame alumni Washington University in St. Louis faculty Duke University Trinity College of Arts and Sciences alumni Law clerks of J. Michael Luttig

Education

Legal career

Representing Donald Trump

See also

References

External links