When Chuck Hatfield, a lawyer in Missouri, showed up at a 2019 hearing to represent Planned Parenthood in its fight to keep a license for the state’s lone surgical abortion clinic, he was surprised to see a familiar face opposing him in the state’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer.
It was an administrative hearing, not a high-stakes trial, but Mr. Sauer, Missouri’s top appellate lawyer, had not sent a deputy. Instead, he came to argue himself that Planned Parenthood’s license should not be renewed because of a handful of cases of complications resulting from abortions. Mr. Sauer lost the hearing, but he had come prepared for a fight.
“He litigated the case aggressively,” Mr. Hatfield said.
Mr. Sauer, 50, now President Trump’s selection to be the U.S. solicitor general — the top Justice Department official representing the federal government in arguments before the Supreme Court — first gained national attention last year when he represented Mr. Trump in his presidential immunity case. He presented a bold argument: A former president could be immune from prosecution even if he ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.
That example elicited outcries at the time, but Mr. Hatfield said he found it typical of Mr. Sauer, a particularly assertive litigator for conservative causes for years, most notably abortion.
“Other lawyers would perhaps not take the stretch positions, but John will go ahead and take them,” Mr. Hatfield said.
On Thursday, the Senate confirmed Mr. Sauer, 52 to 45, putting him in charge of Mr. Trump’s aggressive attempt to get the Supreme Court to intervene in a series of cases in which lower court judges have temporarily blocked wide pieces of the administration’s agenda.
