Nov 17, 2018 · Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General served as Acting Attorney General. Mr. Whitaker’s designation is no more constitutionally problem-atic than countless similar presidential orders dating back over 200 years. Were the long agreement of Congress and the President insufficient,
Sep 17, 2007 · Acting Attorney General . The President may designate an Acting Attorney General under the Vacancies Reform Act, even if an officer of the Department of Justice otherwise could act under 28 U.S.C. § 508, which deals with succession to the office of the Attorney General. September 17, 2007 . M. EMORANDUM . O.
Jan 20, 2021 · In his nearly month-long tenure as acting attorney general, Rosen withstood pressure from President Donald Trump, who personally and through White House officials had pushed repeatedly for the ...
Nov 09, 2018 · The Attorney General Succession Act, Section 508, stipulates that when there is a vacancy in the office of the attorney general, the deputy attorney general — currently Rod Rosenstein — can ...
Term of office. When a vacancy occurs, the position can be filled by an acting officer for 210 days from the date of the vacancy, in addition to the time when a nomination is pending before the Senate.
The President of the United States has the authority to appoint U.S. Attorneys, with the consent of the United States Senate, and the President may remove U.S. Attorneys from office. In the event of a vacancy, the United States Attorney General is authorized to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney.
In his place, the president has appointed Jeffrey Rosen – Mr Barr's current deputy attorney general – as the acting attorney general. He will be the fifth attorney general under the Trump administration, the most appointed to the role for a one-term president.Dec 15, 2020
Instead, the authority to act as Attorney General is derived from one statute alone: 28 U.S.C. § 508. That authority automatically vests the power to act in the Deputy Attorney General and several other Senate-confirmed Department of Justice (DOJ) officials in a specified sequence.Jun 1, 2020
He can be removed by the President at any time. He can quit by submitting his resignation only to the President. Since he is appointed by the President on the advice of the Council of Ministers, conventionally he is removed when the council is dissolved or replaced.
Attorneys General. While impeachment proceedings against cabinet secretaries is an exceedingly rare event, no office has provoked the ire of the House of Representatives than that of Attorney General. During the first fifth of the 21st century, no less than three Attorneys General have been subjected to the process.
In the order of creation, the position of attorney general was the fourth cabinet level position created by Congress, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Attorneys general may be impeached and removed from office by Congress. As of 2013 the office of U.S. Attorney General has been held by eighty two people.
69 years (November 13, 1952)Merrick Garland / Age
Jeff SessionsOfficial portrait, 201784th United States Attorney GeneralIn office February 9, 2017 – November 7, 2018PresidentDonald Trump33 more rows
Merrick GarlandUnited States Attorney GeneralIncumbent Merrick Garland since March 11, 2021United States Department of JusticeStyleMr. Attorney General (informal) The Honorable (formal)Member ofCabinet National Security Council13 more rows
AGs investigate and bring actions under their states' respective unfair, deceptive, and abusive practices laws (“UDAP laws”). UDAP laws tend to broadly prohibit “deceptive” or “unconscionable” acts against consumers.
William BarrPresidentGeorge H. W. BushPreceded byDonald B. AyerSucceeded byGeorge J. Terwilliger IIIUnited States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel30 more rows
Well before the Supreme Court’s foundational decision in Eaton in 1898, courts approved of the proposition that acting officers are entitled to payment for services during their temporary appointments as principal officers. See, e.g., United States v. White, 28 F. Cas. 586, 587 (C.C.D. Md. 1851) (Taney, Circuit J.) (“[I]t often happens that, in unexpected contingencies, and for temporary purposes, the appointment of a person already in office, to execute the duties of another office, is more conven-ient and useful to the public, than to bring in a new officer to execute the duty.”); Dickins, Rep. C.C. 9, at 17, 1856 WL 4042, at *3 (finding a chief clerk was entitled to additional compensation “for his services[] as acting Secretary of the Treasury and as acting Secretary of State”). Most signifi-cantly, in Boyle, the Court of Claims concluded that the chief clerk of the Navy (who was not Senate confirmed) had properly served as Acting Secretary of the Navy on an intermittent basis over seven years for a total of 466 days. Rep. C.C. 44, at 8, 1857 WL 4155, at *1–2 (1857). The court expressly addressed the Appointments Clause question and distinguished, for constitutional purposes, between the office of Secretary of the Navy and the office of Acting Secretary of the Navy. Id. at 8, 1857 WL 4155 at *3 (“It seems to us . . . plain that the office of Secretary ad interim is a distinct and independent office in itself. It is not the office of Secre-
That Act provides three mecha-nisms by which an acting officer may take on the functions and duties of an office, when an executive officer who is required to be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate “ dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office .”
3, 12–13 (Ct. Cl. 1857) (identifying 13 times between 1831 and 1838 that chief clerk John Boyle was appointed as Acting Secretary of the Navy, for a total of 466 days).
The constitutionality of Mr. Whitaker’s designation as Acting Attorney General is supported by Supreme Court precedent, by acts of Congress passed in three different centuries, and by countless examples of execu-tive practice. To say that the Appointments Clause now prohibits the President from designating Mr. Whitaker as Acting Attorney General would mean that the Vacancies Reform Act and a dozen statutes were unconstitutional, as were countless prior instances of temporary service going back to at least the Jefferson Administration.
With the resignation of Sessions on November 7, 2018, Whitaker was appointed to serve as Acting Attorney General under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. In that position, he directly supervised Robert Mueller 's Special Counsel investigation, which had previously been supervised by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in his role as Acting Attorney General, due to the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Supreme Court's decision in Marbury v. Madison (1803), the decision that allows judicial review of the constitutionality of the acts of the other branches of government, and several other Supreme Court holdings. When Whitaker later became acting Attorney General four years later, Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe commented on Whita ker's views that "the overall picture he presents would have virtually no scholarly support", and that they would be "'destabilizing' to society if he used the power of the attorney general to advance them".
They also said that it was a "close call" and his decision, but in their opinion he "should recuse himself because 'a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts' would question his impartiality due to the statements he had made to the press." Whitaker decided not to recuse himself, not wanting to be the first attorney general "who had recused [himself] based on statements in the news media."
Early life, education, and college football career. Matthew George Whitaker was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 29, 1969. He graduated from Ankeny High School, where he was a football star. He was inducted into the Iowa High School Football Hall of Fame in 2009.
On September 22, 2017, a Justice Department official announced that Sessions was appointing Whitaker to replace Jody Hunt as his chief of staff. George J. Terwilliger III, a former U.S. attorney and deputy attorney general, said in his role as chief of staff, Whitaker would have dealt daily with making "substantive choices about what is important to bring to the AG".
Trump saw Whitaker's supportive commentaries on CNN in the summer of 2017, and in July White House counsel Don McGahn interviewed Whitaker to join Trump's legal team as an "attack dog" against Robert Mueller, who was heading the Special Counsel investigation. Trump associates believe Whitaker was later hired to limit the fallout of the investigation, including by reining in any Mueller report and preventing Trump from being subpoenaed. On November 13, a DOJ spokesperson said that Whitaker would seek advice from ethics officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) about whether a recusal from overseeing the Russia investigation was warranted.
During a six-month span in 2017, Whitaker insisted that there was no obstruction of justice or collusion and criticized the initial appointment of the special counsel. He also called the probe "political" and "the left is trying to sow this theory that essentially Russians interfered with the U.S. election, which has been proven false". He also published an op-ed titled, "Mueller's Investigation of Trump Is Going Too Far" in which he expressed skepticism about the investigation generally and called the appointment of Mueller "ridiculous". He also retweeted a link to an article that referred to the investigation as a "lynch mob".
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated racial disparities that have long plagued our country, and we have a moral obligation to address this problem.
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William Barr, 69 and a veteran of 40 years in Washington, was confirmed one year ago as attorney general, a position with broad influence over the administration of justice and broad sway over public faith placed in it.
Barr grew up in New York City, graduated from George Washington University law school, served in the Reagan administration and was attorney general under George HW Bush, establishing a record as a hardliner on gang violence and immigration and advocating for pardons in the Iran-Contra affair.