By Kacen Bayless and Daniel Desrochers
The Kansas City Star
(The Kansas City Star) When President-elect Donald Trump announced his pick for U.S. solicitor general, he tapped one of the leading anti-abortion lawyers in Missouri: D. John Sauer.
Sauer was solicitor general of Missouri from 2017 through 2022 under Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, when they each served as Missouri attorney general. In that role, Sauer had a long history of defending the state’s restrictions on abortion access, including a highly publicized case that revealed the state health department had tracked women’s periods.
Sauer’s appointment to serve as the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawyer in front of the U.S. Supreme Court marks a new chapter in a strong conservative legal career. He’s worked on cases accusing the federal government of stifling speech on social media, sought to uphold laws banning transgender people from participating in gendered sports leagues and – most notably – successfully pushed the U.S. Supreme Court to grant broader legal immunity to the president.
But Sauer’s background working to limit legal access to abortion – both in Missouri and beyond – could play a pivotal role as he steers the legal arguments in the Justice Department over the next few years.
Anti-abortion groups have already sought to legally pressure the federal government to limit access to abortion pills, and could relaunch their efforts now with a federal government less willing to staunchly defend abortion rights.
Trump, in a release announcing Sauer’s nomination last week, called Sauer a “deeply accomplished, masterful appellate attorney” and mentioned his work on Trump’s legal team where he pushed back at charges that the president-elect attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“John will be a great Champion for us as we Make America Great Again!” the release said.
The president-elect has also chosen another Missouri member of that legal team, Will Scharf, to serve in his administration. Scharf, who recently ran for Missouri attorney general, will serve as an Assistant to the President and White House Staff Secretary, Trump announced over the weekend.
Sauer and Scharf did not immediately return calls for comment.
Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City attorney who frequently argued cases against Sauer in court, painted Sauer as an intelligent and hard-working attorney who would be a “good advocate” for Trump’s administration. But he also said Sauer would not hesitate “to take even extreme positions in support of the president.”
“I think that he is perfectly willing to argue positions that the rest of us find unreasonable or even repulsive,” Hatfield said. “I don’t think it bothers him at all, if he can get himself comfortable with the argument from an intellectual standpoint, to make even extreme policy arguments.”
Fighting abortion rights
Sauer’s track record in Missouri has largely centered on fighting access to abortion in the state.
He defended the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services in 2019 when the agency revoked the license of Missouri’s last-remaining abortion clinic in St. Louis. The case generated national attention when the agency’s director, Randall Williams, testified that he kept a spreadsheet to track the menstrual periods of women who visited Planned Parenthood.
The spreadsheet was obtained by Planned Parenthood through legal discovery and its existence came to light during a hearing in the license case, according to previous reporting.
DHSS at the time pushed back on a claim that Williams had requested the spreadsheet, although it was titled “Director’s Request.” The agency also said Williams was never in possession of the spreadsheet and had not seen it until he was deposed in October 2019.
Missouri’s Administrative Hearing Commission ultimately ruled that the agency had wrongfully denied the license, allowing the clinic to continue offering abortions. After DHSS was ordered to pay Planned Parenthood’s legal bills, Sauer also fought against the decision and asked a judge to allow the agency to further investigate Planned Parenthood’s corporate structure.
Hatfield, who argued against Sauer in the case, said it was telling that Sauer, as solicitor general, was willing to handle a case at such a low level of Missouri’s court system.
“He argued, I think, everything in that case,” Hatfield said. “He was clearly very passionate about, you know, the pro-life position, and trying to see Planned Parenthood lose their license.”
That same year, Sauer also defended a state law that blocked Medicaid dollars from going to Planned Parenthood, part of a yearslong effort by Republican lawmakers to strip funds away from the organization. The state Supreme Court later ruled against Sauer and Missouri.
Sauer has also drafted, or signed onto, several legal briefs fighting abortion access, including one in 2021 that defended an Arizona law that restricted abortion based on a patient’s reason for seeking one, including genetic conditions.
After leaving the Missouri Attorney General’s Office in 2023, Sauer has made substantial donations to anti-abortion causes in the state. This year, he contributed $777,000 to Missouri anti-abortion groups, including $277,000 to two groups that opposed a ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.
Sam Lee, a longtime anti-abortion lobbyist and president of one of the anti-abortion groups, said Sauer was generous with his donations.
“I mean, he’s absolutely pro-life. Always has been, always will be,” Lee said. “And that’s not the only thing that the Solicitor General deals with, obviously. He’s got all sorts of issues, but, I mean, he’s just capable of dealing with any legal matter. And I just think he’s just an excellent choice.”
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Lee touted Sauer as an “absolute workhorse” with a “brilliant mind.” He said he was grateful that Trump picked both him and Scharf.
“I was just pleasantly surprised to see two men who are either from Missouri or have strong connections with Missouri to be on the president’s team,” Lee said. “I think they will serve this country and the pro-life movement well.”
But Sauer’s appointment still has to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate and a spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Great Plains signaled that senators should consider his anti-abortion positions.
“Missourians know better than most that John Sauer is an effective advocate for extremely dangerous ideas,” spokesperson Hanna Sumpter said in a statement. “We saw first-hand during his time as Missouri’s solicitor general a willingness to fight against individuals’ ability to make private health care decisions.”
As Sauer transitions to a national version of his role with Missouri, Sumpter said “the Senate should make him answer for positions that put ideology before Missourians.”
But, as the Senate grapples with some of Trump’s more controversial picks – like Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz, who would serve as Sauer’s boss – Sauer’s confirmation appears to be on a smoother path.
Sen. Josh Hawley, who declined to speak to The Star about Sauer, said he plans to support Trump’s nominees.
“My presumption is to support all of the president’s nominees,” Hawley said. “He’s the leader of my party and he’s won a decisive victory.”
Pushing a conservative agenda
Just days after Trump announced Sauer’s nomination, the nominee sat down on a panel called Sex, Gender and the Law at the conservative Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention for a discussion that touched on the ongoing legal challenges over whether state governments can restrict rights for transgender children.
It was a topic Sauer has spent some time on. Prior to his nomination, Sauer was defending Arizona’s law banning transgender athletes from playing in school sports leagues that match their gender identity.
It’s one of several cases the Supreme Court is set to hear over the Supreme Court’s next term, including a challenge to a Tennessee law preventing children from receiving gender-affirming health care; similar to a Missouri law currently being challenged at the state level.
Where the Biden administration attempted to create rules to protect transgender rights, Trump used anti-transgender rhetoric to help defeat Vice President Kamala Harris.
In his new role, Sauer will likely lead a large shift in how the Department of Justice approaches some of the social issues cases still making their way through the courts, like cases regarding access to abortion and transgender care.
Sauer reentered private practice after leaving his role as Missouri Solicitor General in 2023. Under the James Otis Law Group – named after a Revolutionary War-era Massachusetts attorney who was known for challenging the British government’s authority over the colonies – Sauer has often appeared in hot-button conservative cases.
One of those cases was Murthy v. Missouri, which Sauer helped launch while working as Schmitt’s Solicitor General. The lawsuit accused the federal government of using its power to pressure social media companies.
The case’s lengthy discovery process helped show how the ways the government and social media companies communicated as the Biden administration struggled to convince some conservatives to take the COVID-19 vaccine — a result that Schmitt claims was more important than the fact that the Supreme Court ruled that Missouri didn’t have the legal standing to bring the case.
Schmitt said Sauer played a key role in that case — and in all the cases his office launched while he served as Missouri Attorney General.
“John was a big part of all the big decisions,” Schmitt said. “I valued his input often, all the time.”
Schmitt said he called Trump after Sauer’s nomination to congratulate the president-elect and compliment him on his pick. But Trump was already familiar with Sauer’s work.
Sauer led the oral argument in front of the Supreme Court that successfully expanded the immunity powers of the president. The Court ruled that the president is immune from criminal prosecution for all official acts he takes while in office.
During the oral argument, Sauer argued the president could even be immune if he makes the decision to assassinate one of his political rivals while in office — an argument that concerned Justice Sonia Sotomayor and factored into her dissent on the opinion.
“Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends,” Sotomayor wrote. “Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.”
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