Congressman Matt Gaetz. Photo courtesy of Gaetz for Congress.
Donald Trump isn’t going to make the same mistake he made during his first term as president. Then, he nominated first Jeff Sessions and later Bill Barr to the post of Attorney General, and both disappointed him at crucial moments. At The New York Sun, A.R. Hoffman explains Trump’s new nominations and their loyalty to the President. He writes:
President Trump’s victory over Vice President Harris is launching his legal team to the glories of high office — and sending Special Counsel Jack Smith in search of a new job.
The attorneys who counseled the president-elect across his four criminal and two civil cases pursued a strategy of delay with an eye toward November’s election. Special Counsel Jack Smith and the state prosecutors tried to bring the cases to verdicts before the vote. Only District Attorney Alvin Bragg of Manhattan succeeded in the hush money case.
Even that victory, though, appears vulnerable to Trump’s triumph. Judge Juan Merchan last week delayed a decision on whether the Supreme Court’s ruling that official presidential acts are presumptively immune upends the convictions. He is due to sentence Trump this month, but could reckon that the impending presidency makes any sentence a non-starter.
Notwithstanding that the Manhattan jury brought in 34 “guilty” verdicts, Trump has nominated his lead attorney in that case, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general. The president-elect intends that he serve under the nominee for attorney general, Congressman Matt Gaetz, whose confirmation prospects are uncertain. An Ironman triathlete, Mr. Blanche was once an assistant United States attorney and a partner at New York City’s oldest law firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.
Mr. Blanche represented Trump in three of the criminal cases against him, and if he is confirmed as the second most powerful man at the Department of Justice, he will be in position to oversee any investigations into Mr. Smith, whom congressional lawmakers have warned could be subject to scrutiny even if he departs his post before Trump takes the oath of office. Mr. Blanche’s clients also comprise the political consultant Paul Manafort and one of Trump’s confidants, Boris Ephsteyn.
Mr. Blanche’s aide-de-camp at the DOJ could be a familiar face — the attorney Emil Bove. Trump has announced his intention to nominate Mr. Bove to the position of principal associate deputy attorney general. Messrs. Bove and Blanche were line prosecutors together at the Southern District of New York, and Mr. Bove joined Mr. Blanche when the latter established his own firm devoted to the defense of the president-elect.
On Mr. Bove’s ledger is perhaps Trump’s signature legal victory — Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling that Attorney General Garland appointed Mr. Smith unlawfully and in a fashion that threatened “the structural liberty inherent in the separation of powers.” She also dismissed the charges against Trump and his two co-defendants. ABC News reported that after that ruling Judge Cannon found herself on a shortlist for attorney general in a second Trump term.
A third member of Trump’s defense team, Dean John Sauer, also finds himself ticketed for a premier post. The onetime solicitor general of Missouri and Rhodes scholar now has been tapped to hold that post for the United States. In January, in the landmark immunity case Trump v. United States, he represented the president-elect before the Supreme Court. The ruling that official presidential acts are presumptively immune — and that some acts enjoy “absolute” immunity — upended Mr. Smith’s election interference case even before this month’s election.
Read more here.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.
