President Trump plans to nominate T. Elliot Gaiser, the conservative solicitor general of Ohio, for the role of assistant attorney general overseeing the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, as per a Justice Department official. This role has historically had significant influence over legal discussions within the executive branch.
The Office of Legal Counsel provides definitive legal interpretations for the executive branch through quasi-judicial opinions. Its legal assessments are binding on other officials and agencies unless overwritten by the attorney general or if the president chooses not to heed its recommendations.
During Mr. Trump’s first term, this office was pivotal in several legal and policy controversies. Under Trump appointee Steven Engel, it authorized actions such as the targeted assassination of a high-ranking Iranian official and the Treasury Department’s decision to withhold Mr. Trump’s tax returns from Congress.
Mr. Gaiser, whose nomination was disclosed by the official speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the matter being unpublicized, possesses a robust conservative legal background.
He clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. during the Supreme Court’s 2021-2 term when Justice Alito authored the majority opinion that overturned the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision.
Prior to that, Mr. Gaiser completed two clerkship years with noted conservative appellate judges, Judge Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Judge Edith H. Jones of the Fifth Circuit, interspersed with brief periods at various law firms.
He has not yet responded to an emailed request for comments late on Tuesday.
Originally from Ohio, Mr. Gaiser attended Hillsdale College, a Christian liberal arts institution in Michigan, graduating in 2012 with a degree in political economy and speech studies. He spent a year at Ohio State University’s law school before transferring to the University of Chicago to complete his degree, as noted on his LinkedIn profile.
After finishing his Supreme Court clerkship, Mr. Gaiser spent a year as an associate with the law firm Jones Day before being appointed the state’s solicitor general by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, representing the state in appellate matters. He previously clerked in that office after his second year in law school.
In announcing the appointment in October 2023, Mr. Yost referred to Mr. Gaiser as “a master craftsman of ironclad legal arguments rooted in originalist principles and constitutional restraint.”
He presented arguments before the Supreme Court in February, defending a state agency in a discrimination lawsuit filed by a heterosexual woman who had lost two job opportunities to gay colleagues.
His positions puzzled some justices because he rejected lower-court decisions that favored the state based on the premise that a member of a majority group needs to provide more substantial evidence of discrimination than a member of a minority group.
Mr. Gaiser asserted to the Supreme Court that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate that she faced discrimination based on her sexual orientation and should therefore lose the case—while also agreeing with the plaintiff that “it is wrong to hold some litigants to a higher standard because of their protected characteristics.”
This prompted Justice Elena Kagan to inquire whether the appellate court, which had ruled in favor of Ohio, was incorrect. Mr. Gaiser concurred that it was.
“The notion that individuals should be held to different standards due to their protected characteristics is fundamentally flawed,” he remarked.
According to the Federalist Society’s website, a prominent conservative legal network, Mr. Gaiser has been involved in numerous events organized by the organization in recent years. Furthermore, the Heritage Foundation, where he interned in the summer of 2013, honored him in December as a distinguished alumnus.
In a December interview with a Heritage Foundation-affiliated online publication, he mentioned that Ohio was engaged in 44 lawsuits against the Biden administration while sharing his conservative viewpoints on a range of issues, including environmental regulations, illegal immigration, and transgender rights.
