pressidemts who fired attorney

by Dr. Fritz Erdman V 6 min read

Why were attorneys fired from the Department of Justice?

Jul 10, 2020 · Jonathan Ernst/Reuters Geoffrey Berman, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York fired by President Donald Trump, told House lawmakers on Thursday that Attorney General Bill Barr repeatedly asked him to resign in a private meeting before his removal, and warned that his firing could damage his reputation.

Can the President fire the attorneys chosen by the predecessors?

By Hillary E. Crawford Jan. 30, 2017 On Monday evening, President Donald Trump fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she refused to comply with his executive orders on …

Who criticized Trump's firing of Attorney General candidates?

Mar 06, 2021 · Biden fired a Trump-appointed lawyer who refused to leave office Yelena Dzhanova Mar 6, 2021, 11:05 AM President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with labor leaders in the Oval Office of the White...

What was the controversy surrounding the dismissals of US Attorneys?

Which president fired all the U.S. attorneys?

On December 7, 2006, the George W. Bush Administration's Department of Justice ordered the unprecedented midterm dismissal of seven United States attorneys.

Can the us Attorney General be removed from office?

The attorney general is nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. There is no designated term for the attorney general, rather the president can remove him or her from the office at any time. Additionally, the attorney general can be impeached and tried by Congress if deemed necessary.

How many U.S. attorneys did Trump assign?

This is a list of United States attorneys appointed by the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump. President Trump nominated 86 people to be U.S. attorneys, and 84 of them were confirmed.

Who was Attorney General during Trump presidency?

William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney who served as the 77th and 85th United States attorney general in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Donald Trump.

Can the President remove inferior officers?

In the absence of specific legislative provision to the contrary, the President may at his discretion remove an inferior officer whose term is limited by statute, 606 or one appointed with the consent of the Senate.

Who can the president not remove from office?

Congress, the Court ruled, could legally restrict the president's ability to remove anyone except "purely executive officers." Two decades later, after President Dwight Eisenhower dismissed Myron Wiener from the War Claims Commission, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the legal limits to the president's removal powers.

Are U.S. attorneys confirmed by the Senate?

The U.S. attorney is appointed by the President of the United States for a term of four years, with appointments subject to confirmation by the Senate. A U.S. attorney continues in office, beyond the appointed term, until a successor is appointed and qualified.

Who is the new US attorney General?

United States Attorney General
Incumbent Merrick Garland since March 11, 2021
United States Department of Justice
StyleMr. Attorney General (informal) The Honorable (formal)
Member ofCabinet National Security Council
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How many US district attorneys are there?

93 U.S. Attorneys
There are 93 U.S. Attorneys located throughout the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. U.S. Attorneys are appointed by, and serve at the discretion of, the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Who is the DOJ now?

Meet the Attorney General

As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Garland leads the Justice Department's 115,000 employees, who work across the United States and in more than 50 countries worldwide.
May 5, 2022

Who was Attorney General under George W Bush?

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.

Who was Attorney General after Barr?

Matthew Whitaker
Preceded byJeff Sessions
Succeeded byWilliam Barr
Chief of Staff to the United States Attorney General
In office September 22, 2017 – November 7, 2018
22 more rows

Who is the special counsel for the Trump-Russia collusion probe?

Naming Weiss to that role would mirror Barr’s decision to elevate John Durham, who was investigating the origins of the Justice Department’s Trump-Russia collusion probe as a U.S. attorney, into a special counsel role, a move that presumably will ensure the integrity of his work in a Biden administration.

Who said "I guarantee you that that's how it will be run"?

Biden underscored the pledge: “I guarantee you that that’s how it will be run.”. As a senator, Biden was particularly critical of another Republican president, George W. Bush, and what he regarded as the politicization of the attorney general position.

Why did Biden call for Alberto Gonzales to resign?

In 2007, Biden publicly called for then-AG Alberto Gonzales to resign in part over the decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys amid allegations of Republican meddling in some of their investigations. Several GOP senators said they also had lost faith in Gonzales, and he eventually stepped down.

Why did Biden call for Gonzales to step down?

In his interview with Wallace, Biden defended his call for Gonzales to step down, arguing that the U.S. attorney firings were politically motivated. Biden added that he believed Gonzales had become a “creature of the president, not the attorney for the people as well as representing the president.”.

Why did Trump excoriate Sessions?

Trump publicly excoriated his first, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the Russia probe, and Barr for failing to investigate or prosecute his political opponents. “We will not tell the Justice Department how to do its job,” Harris said in a joint interview she and Biden gave to CNN in early December.

Why did Bob Dole ask Biden to hold hearings?

At the time, Senate Republican leader Bob Dole pressed Biden to hold hearings into the firings because he regarded the dismissals as “a severe blow to the administration of justice.”

Did Biden say there was no political meddling in the Clinton case?

In Clinton’s case, Biden said there was no political meddling in the investigations, noting that Rostenkowski was convicted and served time in jail, a prosecution carried on by the dismissed U.S. attorney’s replacement.

Who was the attorney general that was fired by Trump?

Geoffrey Berman, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York fired by President Donald Trump, told House lawmakers on Thursday that Attorney General Bill Barr repeatedly asked him to resign in a private meeting before his removal, and warned that his firing could damage his reputation.

Why was Berman fired?

Berman was fired by Trump in June after a standoff with Attorney General Barr.

Why did Barr step down?

In his statement to lawmakers, Berman said that Barr was not unhappy with his performance, and only said he wanted him to step down from the post "because the Administration wanted to get Jay Clayton into that position."

Who replaced Berman in New Jersey?

On June 19, Barr announced that Berman had resigned, and would be replaced by the U.S. attorney in New Jersey in an acting capacity until the Senate confirmed Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton for the post.

Did Berman answer questions about Barr's intentions?

Sources familiar with Berman's interview said he repeatedly declined to answer questions about the nature of his work or thoughts on Barr's intentions, and hewed closely to his prepared statement.

Why were the seven attorneys fired?

Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 6. He said that the seven were fired for job performance issues and not political considerations; these statements lead several of the dismissed attorneys, who had been previously silent, to come forward with questions about their dismissals, partially because their performance reviews prior to their dismissal had been highly favorable.

Why were some of the attorneys targeted for dismissal?

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.

Why are emails about the firing of attorneys lost?

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."

What did Gonzales say about the dismissal of the attorneys?

He also stood by his decision to dismiss the attorneys, saying "I stand by the decision and I think it was the right decision". Gonzales admitted that "incomplete information was communicated or may have been communicated to Congress" by Justice Department officials, and said that "I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood."

What was the process used to fire the first seven attorneys and two others dismissed around the same time?

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".

How long can an interim attorney serve?

Attorneys by deleting two provisions: (a) the 120-day maximum term for the Attorney General's interim appointees, and (b) the subsequent interim appointment authority of Federal District Courts. With the revision, an interim appointee can potentially serve indefinitely (though still removable by the President), if the President declines to nominate a U.S. Attorney for a vacancy, or the Senate either fails to act on a Presidential nomination, or rejects a nominee that is different than the interim appointee.

What did the change in the law do to the Attorney General?

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.

Who was fired from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission?

President Joe Biden on Friday fired a Trump-appointed lawyer serving on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that investigates workplace sex discrimination and retaliation. Sharon Gustafson, who had under the Trump administration been the EEOC's general counsel, refused to resign, according to an email published online by ...

When is Biden meeting with labor leaders?

President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with labor leaders in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, in Washington, DC. Evan Vucci/AP. The president on Friday dismissed a Trump appointee, Sharon Gustafson, after she refused to resign.

Issues in Brief

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By tradition, all U.S. Attorneys are asked to resign at the start of a new administration. The new President may elect to keep or remove any U.S. Attorney. They are traditionally replaced collectively only at the start of a new White House administration. U.S. Attorneys hold a political office, in which the President nomin…
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Fallout

  • By April 2007, there was some speculation that the dismissal of the US attorneys might affect cases of public corruption and voter fraud. According to the National Law Journal, By mid-September 2007, nine senior staff of the Department of Justice associated with the controversy had resigned.The most prominent resignations include: 1. 1.1. Attorney General Alberto Gonzale…
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Replacement of The U.S. Attorneys

  • Initial planning
    On January 6, 2005, Colin Newman, an assistant in the White House counsels office, wrote to David Leitch stating, "Karl Rovestopped by to ask you (roughly quoting) 'how we planned to proceed regarding U.S. Attorneys, whether we were going to allow all to stay, request resignation…
  • Implementation: The U.S. Attorney Removal List
    In October 2006, George W. Bushtold Alberto Gonzales that he had received complaints that some of the U.S. Attorneys had not pursued certain voter-fraud investigations. The complaints came from Republican officials, who demanded fraud investigations into a number of Democratic cam…
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Reactions and Congressional Investigation

  • Initial reaction
    The initial reaction was from the senators of the affected states. In a letter to Gonzales on January 9, 2007, Senators Feinstein (D, California) and Leahy (D, Vermont; Chair of the Committee) of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed concern that the confirmation proces…
  • Contempt of Congress charges
    On July 11, 2007, as Sara Taylor testified, George Manning, the attorney to former White House CounselHarriet Miers, announced that Miers intended to follow the request of the Bush Administration and not appear before the Committee the following day. Manning stated Miers "c…
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Aftermath

  • Subpoenas and lost emails
    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 po…
  • Appointment of U.S. Attorneys and the 2005 Patriot Act reauthorization
    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. …
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See Also

References and External Links

  1. Resignation letters and emails, and other related documents hosted by WSJ
  2. Taylor, Marissa; Margaret Talev (2007-06-18). "A Q&A for the U.S. Attorneys saga". McClatchy Washington Bureau. McClatchy Newspapers. Archived from the original on June 2, 2008. Retrieved 2007-06-20.
  3. The Washington Post in-depth coverage site on firings: "Special Reports: U.S. Attorney Firing…
  1. Resignation letters and emails, and other related documents hosted by WSJ
  2. Taylor, Marissa; Margaret Talev (2007-06-18). "A Q&A for the U.S. Attorneys saga". McClatchy Washington Bureau. McClatchy Newspapers. Archived from the original on June 2, 2008. Retrieved 2007-06-20.
  3. The Washington Post in-depth coverage site on firings: "Special Reports: U.S. Attorney Firings Investigation". The Washington Post. 2007-03-05. Retrieved 2010-05-01.
  4. Inside the U.S. Attorneys Emails: Major Players and Themes The Wall Street Journal(review of the most significant of the emails).