T. Elliot Gaiser will be nominated to lead the influential Office of Legal Counsel, a department official said.
President Trump intends to nominate T. Elliot Gaiser, the conservative solicitor general of Ohio, to be the assistant attorney general leading the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, according to a Justice Department official. That position has traditionally often had the final say on legal debates within the executive branch.
The Office of Legal Counsel issues authoritative interpretations of the law for the executive branch through courtlike opinions. Its view of what the law permits is binding on other agencies and officials unless the attorney general overrides the office or the president opts not to take its advice.
The office was at the center of many legal and policy fights during Mr. Trump’s first administration. Led by the Trump appointee Steven Engel, it signed off on the ordering of the targeted killing of a top Iranian official and the Treasury Department’s withholding of Mr. Trump’s tax returns from Congress.
Mr. Gaiser, whose selection as the forthcoming nominee was provided by the official on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that has not yet been announced, has a strong conservative legal résumé.
He clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. during the Supreme Court’s 2021-2 term, when Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion overruling the Roe v. Wade abortion rights precedent.
Mr. Gaiser had previously served two clerkship years with prominent conservative appellate court judges, Judge Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Judge Edith H. Jones of the Fifth Circuit, alternating with short stints at law firms.