Jeff Wall

Jeff Wall served in the first Trump administration as Principal Deputy Solicitor General from March 2017 until January 21, 2021. Wall is a contributor to the Federalist Society, and twice served as the Acting Solicitor General during Trump’s term in office, where he was charged with overseeing appellate litigation for the United States at the Supreme Court. After the 2020 presidential election, members of the DOJ and White House Counsel, including William Barr, Jeffrey Rosen, and Pat Cipollone, pushed back against Trump’s suggestion to sue contested states directly in the Supreme Court; however, at one point, Trump reportedly planned to go around the attorney general and make his case to Wall directly.

Wall spent his four years in the Solicitor General’s Office arguing the administration’s cases in front of the Supreme Court, twice defending the president’s policies and personal interests. In Trump v. New York, Wall advocated for the executive order that tried to include a citizenship question on the census. And, in Trump v. Mazars, in a prelude to this term’s _Trump v. United States _where Trump’s attorneys are advocating for full presidential immunity, Wall argued that outside of impeachment, Congress lacks the authority to investigate the president’s possible conflicts of interest or violations of the law. Additionally, in NIFLA v. Becerra, Wall successfully argued that a California statute requiring a pregnancy crisis center to list other options outside of pregnancy, such as abortion, violated the mostly Christian non-profit groups’ First Amendment rights.

Currently, Wall is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, heading up the Supreme Court and Appellate Practice. He previously served as Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States from 2008-2013 and was the co-head of the Appellate Litigation Practice at Sullivan & Cromwell before joining the Trump Administration. Wall clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas during the October Term 2004. Prior to his clerkship with Thomas, Wall clerked for J. Harvey Wilkinson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.