Trump’s Appointment of His Personal Attorneys to Powerful Washington Roles Turns the Tables on Jack Smith and Alvin Bragg

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. The Department of Justice explains that “the task of the Office of the Solicitor General is to supervise and conduct government litigation in the United States Supreme Court.” Previous solicitors general have included such legal luminaries as three future high court justices, Elena Kagan, Thurgood Marshall, and Robert Jackson, as well as Judge Robert Bork, litigator Ted Olson, and President Taft. Mr. Sauer, though, was not able to persuade the justices to accept his client’s interpretation of the Impeachment Judgment Clause. An attorney, Will Scharf, who served on Trump’s team for the January 6 case, was, over the weekend, tapped to serve as White House staff secretary, the position responsible for managing the flow of paper to the president. Mr. Scharf earlier this year mounted an unsuccessful run for Missouri’s attorney general. In a statement, Trump called him a “highly skilled attorney who will be a crucial part of my White House team.”Dimmer prospects await Mr. Smith. He could return to prosecuting war crimes at the Hague, or perhaps to an academic post at one of America’s law schools. Trump’s Department of Justice would be inhospitable terrain — to say the least — and a corporate posting could be scarce given the many entanglements any significant firm is likely to have with the Trump administration.

Trump’s Appointment of His Personal Attorneys to Powerful Washington Roles Turns the Tables on Jack Smith and Alvin Bragg

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