Critics said that the attorneys were fired for failing to prosecute Democratic politicians, for failing to prosecute claims of election fraud that would hamper Democratic voter registration, as retribution for prosecuting Republican politicians, or for failing to pursue adult obscenity prosecutions.
10 Generals/Admirals That Got Fired. On April 11, 1951 President Harry Truman had had enough, and fired General of the Army (5 star general) Douglas MacArthur.
According to Newsweek, "Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's chief of staff, developed the list of eight prosecutors to be fired last October—with input from the White House". On November 27, 2006, Gonzales met with senior advisers to discuss the plan.
^ Reilly, Ryan. "No criminal charges in US attorney firings". Main Justice. Archived from the original on 2016-05-27. Retrieved 15 June 2016. ^ a b Lipton, Eric; David Johnston (2007-05-03).
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.
Eric Himpton Holder Jr. (born January 21, 1951) is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States from 2009 to 2015. Holder, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama, was the first African American to hold the position of U.S. attorney general.
Previous officeholdersOfficeNameTook officeAttorney GeneralWilliam BarrFebruary 14, 2019Sally YatesJanuary 20, 2017Deputy Attorney GeneralJanuary 10, 2015General Counsel of the Federal Bureau of InvestigationDana BoenteJanuary 23, 201835 more rows
Reno remained Attorney General for the rest of Clinton' presidency, making her the longest-serving Attorney General since William Wirt in 1829.
Merrick GarlandUnited States / Attorney general
William BarrPresidentGeorge H. W. BushPreceded byDonald B. AyerSucceeded byGeorge J. Terwilliger IIIUnited States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel30 more rows
President Trump nominated 86 people to be U.S. attorneys, and 84 of them were confirmed.
Jeffrey A. RosenPreceded byWilliam BarrSucceeded byMonty Wilkinson (acting)38th United States Deputy Attorney GeneralIn office May 22, 2019 – December 23, 202027 more rows
John David Ashcroft (born May 9, 1942) is an American lawyer, lobbyist, and former politician who served as the 79th U.S. Attorney General in the George W. Bush Administration, Senator from Missouri, and Governor of Missouri. He later founded the Ashcroft Group, a Washington D.C. lobbying firm.
On March 12, 1993, Ms. Reno became the first woman and 78th attorney general. She went on to become the longest serving attorney general in the 20th century.
The term was originally used to refer to any person who holds a general power of attorney to represent a principal in all matters. In the common law tradition, anyone who represents the state, especially in criminal prosecutions, is such an attorney.
In layman terms, Chief Justice is a Judge and Attorney General is a Lawyer, both have distinct roles to play. The Attorney General of India is the highest law officer of the country and he/she is the chief legal advisor to the GoI. He is responsible to assist the government in all its legal matters.
Presidential transition[edit] It is the practice for the attorney general, along with the other Cabinet secretaries and high-level political appointees of the President, to tender a resignation with effect on the Inauguration Day(January 20) of a new president.
The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United Stateson all legal matters. The attorney general is a statutory member of the Cabinet of the United States.
Gerson was fourth in the line of succession at the Justice Department, but other senior DOJ officials had already resigned.[14] Janet Reno, President Clinton's nominee for attorney general, was confirmed on March 12,[15]and he resigned the same day.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel stated that some of the emails that had involved official correspondence relating to the firing of attorneys may have been lost because they were conducted on Republican party accounts and not stored properly. "Some official e-mails have potentially been lost and that is a mistake the White House is aggressively working to correct." said Stanzel, a White House spokesman. Stonzel said that they could not rule out the possibility that some of the lost emails dealt with the firing of U.S. attorneys. For example, J. Scott Jennings, an aide to Karl Rove communicated with Justice Department officials "concerning the appointment of Tim Griffin, a former Rove aide, as U.S. attorney in Little Rock, according to e-mails released in March, 2007. For that exchange, Jennings, although working at the White House, used an e-mail account registered to the Republican National Committee, where Griffin had worked as a political opposition researcher."
The change in the law undermined the confirmation authority of the Senate and gave the Attorney General greater appointment powers than the President, since the President's U.S. Attorney appointees are required to be confirmed by the Senate and those of the Attorney General did not require confirmation.
On September 29, 2008 the Justice Department's Inspector General (IG) released a report on the matter that found most of the firings were politically motivated and improper.
A subsequent report by the Justice Department Inspector General in October 2008 found that the process used to fire the first seven attorneys and two others dismissed around the same time was "arbitrary", "fundamentally flawed" and "raised doubts about the integrity of Department prosecution decisions".
Allegations were that some of the attorneys were targeted for dismissal to impede investigations of Republican politicians or that some were targeted for their failure to initiate investigations that would damage Democratic politicians or hamper Democratic-leaning voters.
The IG's report contained "substantial evidence" that party politics drove a number of the firings, and IG Glenn Fine said in a statement that Gonzales had "abdicated his responsibility to safeguard the integrity and independence of the department.".
Kevin Ryan (R) Though described as "loyal to the Bush administration," he was allegedly fired for the possible controversy that negative job performance evaluations might cause if they were released. John McKay (R) Was given a positive job evaluation 7 months before he was fired.
November 2, 2004: On the day of the presidential election, John Ashcroft submits his resignation from the post of Attorney General, marking the conclusion of a tumultuous term in office. The White House announces acceptance of the resignation a week later, on November 9, 2009, along with that of Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans. Ashcroft states in the resignation his willingness to serve until a successor is nominated and confirmed. He is the first cabinet-level officer to resign from the George W. Bush administration. It was reported that the White House had indicated to Ashcroft that his resignation would be expected. Ashcroft would remain in office until Alberto Gonzales took the oath of office on February 3, 2005, after his confirmation by the Senate.
Officials who resigned. Alberto Gonzales, United States Attorney General, former White House Counsel. Kyle Sampson, Chief of Staff to the Attorney General. Michael A. Battle, Director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. Michael Elston, Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General.
June 15, 2007: Michael Elston, Chief of Staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, announced his resignation that day, to be effective in one week from then, June 22, 2007. He became the fifth senior official at the Department of Justice to announce their resignation during the controversy.
Gonzales admitted that "incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to Congress" by Justice Department officials. March 13, 2007: At the request of the House Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department releases documents detailing the firings of U.S. attorneys.
National Review pointed out that Janet Reno began her tenure as President Bill Clinton 's attorney general in March 1993 by firing U.S. attorneys for 93 of the 94 federal districts, this being more than twice as many as Trump attorney general Sessions fired on Friday.
President Donald Trump declined to accept the resignations of Dana Boente (left) and Rod Rosenstein (right). Trump declined to accept the resignations of Boente (Eastern District of Virginia), who was serving as Acting Deputy Attorney General, and Rosenstein (District of Maryland), whom Trump had selected to become Deputy Attorney General.
Trump's Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, traded stocks of health-related corporations during the time period when Price was working on crafting the legislation that would affect those firms.
Attorney General J. Howard McGrath, a former governor of and senator from Rhode Island, appointed Newbold Morris as a special assistant attorney general in the Justice Department to investigate corruption.
The attorney general serves at the pleasure of the president, and the president can determine that a prosecution would undermine the national security—a subject on which he has a wider perspective and a greater responsibility than the attorney general—and order that it not go forward.
The president can fire the attorney general. O bama administration spokesmen are portraying the president as unable to overrule Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to have a special prosecutor determine whether to prosecute CIA interrogators who were cleared by Department of Justice career attorneys back in 2004.
Fired U.S. Attorneys: A Who's Who April 15, 2007. The Bush administration fired seven U.S. attorneys on a single day last December. After Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress in January, they began hearings into whether those dismissals — as well as an earlier one, in June 2006 — were politically motivated.
In response to congressional inquiries, the Department of Justice released a series of internal communications — including e-mails with White House staff — that preceded the firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
February 2005: Harriet Miers, who has replaced Gonzales as White House counsel, suggests that all 93 U.S. attorneys be replaced. Feb. 14, 2005: Gonzales is sworn in as attorney general of the United States.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Leahy responds, "I don't accept his offer.". March 26, 2007: The Justice Department's White House liaison and senior counselor to Gonzales, Monica Goodling, says she will invoke her Fifth Amendment right not to respond to questions from Congress about the U.S. attorney dismissals.
March 13, 2007: The Justice Department sends documents to Capitol Hill detailing the correspondence between White House and Justice Department officials over the U.S. attorneys issue. Gonzales insists that he will not resign amid calls for his ouster.
10 Generals/Admirals That Got Fired. On April 11, 1951 President Harry Truman had had enough, and fired General of the Army (5 star general) Douglas MacArthur . Firing the senior American general during a war, especially one that had been awarded the Medal of Honor (in World War II) and that was a national hero is not to be taken lightly; however, ...
Bearing the lofty title, General-in-Chief, McClellan was in charge of the Union forces for the first part of the Civil War. His indecision and slow reactions, combined with a seemingly reluctance to prosecute the war drove President Lincoln to distraction.
Auchinleck was accused by the Britiish General Staff of losing battles due to “nothing less than bad generalship.”. Sadly, Auchinleck was also fired by his wife, who left him in 1944 for Air Chief Marshall Pierse. 5.