Jeffrey A. Rosen | |
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Official portrait, 2019 | |
Acting United States Attorney General | |
In office December 24, 2020 – January 20, 2021 | |
President | Donald Trump |
On February 3, 2022, Governor Phil Murphy nominated Matthew J. Platkin to be the 62nd Attorney General of New Jersey, and he assumed the role of Acting Attorney General on Monday, February 14, pending his Senate confirmation.
Matthew George Whitaker (born October 29, 1969) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the Acting United States Attorney General from November 7, 2018, to February 14, 2019.
^ Johnston, David (November 21, 1991). "Barr Is Confirmed on Voice Vote As 77th Attorney General of U.S." The New York Times. Retrieved April 18, 2019. ^ Colvin, Jill; Miller, Zeke (December 7, 2018). "Trump Says He's Nominating Barr for Attorney General". U.S. News & World Report. AP. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
Jeff Sessions was sworn in as the 84th Attorney General of the United States on February 9, 2017 by Michael R. Pence. President Donald J. Trump announced his intention to nominate Mr. Sessions on November 18, 2016. LEARN MORE.
President of the United StatesUnited States Attorney GeneralSeatRobert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building Washington, D.C.AppointerPresident of the United States with United States Senate advice and consentTerm lengthNo fixed termConstituting instrument28 U.S.C. § 50313 more rows
Matthew WhitakerPresidentDonald TrumpDeputyRod RosensteinPreceded byJeff SessionsSucceeded byWilliam Barr22 more rows
Lisa O. MonacoMeet the Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco is the 39th Deputy Attorney General of the United States. As the Deputy Attorney General, she is the Department's second-ranking official and is responsible for the overall supervision of the Department.
List of United States AttorneysDistrictAttorneyLeft officeAlabamaCaliforniaU.S. Attorney for the C.D. of CaliforniaNicola T. HannaJanuary 8, 2021U.S. Attorney for the E.D. of CaliforniaMcGregor W. ScottFebruary 28, 2021143 more rows
The current attorney general is Merrick Garland, who was sworn in on March 11, 2021....United States Department of Justice.Agency overviewTypeExecutive departmentJurisdictionU.S. federal government10 more rows
Edmund Jennings RandolphThe Judiciary Act of 1789 established the Office of the Attorney General. On September 26, 1789, Edmund Jennings Randolph was appointed the first Attorney General of the United States by President George Washington.
However, when practising law, lawyers can only provide legal assistance, advice, and counselling to their clients while an attorney can represent clients in court and initiate defendant prosecutions in addition to providing legal counsel and consultation.
Carl Karpinski - Assistant Attorney General - State of North Dakota | LinkedIn.
(1) The Attorney-General, as the principal legal adviser, shall tender legal advice and opinion to the National Executive following a request to do so and shall of his own initiative give such advice where it appears to him necessary or appropriate for legal advice to be given on a matter.
Mr. VenugopalIn July 2017, Mr. Venugopal, 90, was appointed by the President of India to succeed Mukul Rohatgi as the A-G. The government's top law officer enjoys a tenure of three years.
On March 10, 2017, Jeff Sessions, who was appointed United States attorney general by President Donald Trump, requested the resignations of 46 United States attorneys.
On February 19, 2019, President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Rosen for the position of United States Deputy Attorney General, succeeding Rod Rosenstein upon his departure from the Department of Justice. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 16 by a vote of 52–45.
Ken Paxton (Republican Party)Texas / Attorney generalKen Paxton is the 51st Attorney General of Texas. He was elected on November 4, 2014, and sworn into office on January 5, 2015. He was re-elected to a second term in 2018. As the state's top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Paxton leads more than 4,000 employees in 38 divisions and 117 offices around Texas.
Barr is sworn in as Attorney General by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2019.
The Rt Hon Michael Ellis KC MP was appointed Attorney General on 6 September 2022.
(1) The Attorney-General, as the principal legal adviser, shall tender legal advice and opinion to the National Executive following a request to do so and shall of his own initiative give such advice where it appears to him necessary or appropriate for legal advice to be given on a matter.
Donald Trump used the Justice Department to win uncalled-for favors for his friends. He also made sure that most high-profile cases were overlooked for the sake of political point-scoring.
Garland’s nomination was approved by the senators with a 70-30 majority vote. He is considered as somebody who can restore the Justice Department’s credibility.
Merrick Garland enjoyed the bipartisan support for his confirmation. His reputation as a champion of integrity and his refusal to politicize the department has brought accolades from all the senators.
On December 7, 2018, Trump nominated William Barr for Attorney General. The legality of Whitaker's appointment as acting U.S. Attorney General was challenged in multiple lawsuits, and questioned by legal scholars, commentators, and politicians. On February 15, 2019, after Barr was sworn in on the previous day, Whitaker became a senior counselor in the Office of the Associate Attorney General; he resigned from the Justice Department on March 2, 2019. After leaving the Justice Department, Whitaker became a guest on news and analysis shows, and was affiliated with the law firm of Graves Garrett. In August 2019, he became a managing director at Axiom Strategies and Clout Public Affairs.
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.
After graduating from law school, Whitaker lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1995 to 2001, before moving back to Iowa.
Throughout his career, Whitaker had stated that he was an Academic All-American in college. A December 2018 investigation by the Wall Street Journal found that he was not. He was sponsor GTE 's 1992 GTE District VII Academic All-District selection; an Iowa football guide erroneously referred to the honor as GTE District VII Academic All-American. A spokeswoman for College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) said CoSIDA was less formally organized in the 1990s and "We know that people over time use terms interchangeably and innocently."
In 2017, FTC investigators examined whether Whitaker had played any role in making threats of legal action to silence the company's critics. Whitaker rebuffed an FTC subpoena for records in October 2017, shortly after he had joined the Department of Justice.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also called on Whitaker to recuse himself from the probe.
In 2014, Whitaker ran for the Republican nomination to fill the Senate seat vacated by Democrat Tom Harkin. He finished fourth in the Republican primary won by Joni Ernst, who went on to win the general election.
In his first tenure at the DOJ, Whitaker served on the Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture Subcommittee for the Attorney General's Advisory Committee and also served on the agency's White Collar Crime and Violent and Organized Crime subcommittees.
Whitaker wrote that he found the possibility of Mueller digging into Trump's finances as part of the Russian probe "deeply concerning to me."
A month before joining the DOJ for the second time, Whitaker penned an opinion piece for CNN.com criticizing Mueller's Russia investigation.
Whitaker's appointment was met almost immediately with calls from the Democratic leadership for him to recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller probe.
Given his record of threats to undermine & weaken the Russia investigation, Matthew Whitaker should recuse himself from any involvement in Mueller’s investigation. Congress must take immediate action to protect the rule of law and integrity of the investigation. #FollowTheFacts
In December 2019, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Patrick J. Leahy asked the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate Barr for approving an illegal surveillance program without legal analysis.
In October 1991, Barr appointed then-retired Democratic Chicago judge Nicholas Bua as special counsel in the Inslaw scandal. Bua's 1993 report found the Department of Justice guilty of no wrongdoing in the matter.
In July 2020, Barr condemned large American tech companies, such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple, and Hollywood studios, accusing them of "kowtowing" to the Chinese Communist Party for the sake of profits. He said that "Hollywood now regularly censors its own movies to appease the Chinese Communist Party, the world's most powerful violator of human rights."
Barr supports the death penalty, arguing that it reduces crime. He advocated a Bush-backed bill that would have expanded the types of crime that could be punished by execution. In a 1991 op-ed in The New York Times, Barr argued that death row inmates' ability to challenge their sentences should be limited to avoid cases dragging on for years: "This lack of finality devastates the criminal justice system. It diminishes the deterrent effect of state criminal laws, saps state prosecutorial resources and continually reopens the wounds of victims and survivors."
During his first tenure as AG, media characterized Barr as "a staunch conservative who rarely hesitates to put his hardline views into action". He was described as affable with a dry, self-deprecating wit. The New York Times described the "central theme" of his tenure to be "his contention that violent crime can be reduced only by expanding Federal and state prisons to jail habitual violent offenders". In an effort to prioritize violent crime, Barr reassigned three hundred FBI agents from counterintelligence work to investigations of gang violence. The New York Times called this move "the largest single manpower shift in the bureau's history".
He also advocated the use of Guantanamo Bay to prevent Haitian refugees and HIV infected individuals from claiming asylum in the United States. According to Vox in December 2018, Barr supported an aggressive "law and order" agenda on immigration as Attorney General in the Bush Administration.
The Washington Post fact-checker described Barr's claim as "astonishing" and PolitiFact said it was "false". In actuality, Trump declined to grant the Special Counsel an in-person interview, and the Special Counsel report characterized Trump's written responses to interview questions as "inadequate".
After graduating from law school, Whitaker lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1995 to 2001, before moving back to Iowa.
Whitaker worked for a number of regional law firms, including Briggs & Morgan (Minneapolis) and Finley Alt Smith (Des Moines), and he was corporate counsel for national grocery store chain SuperValu in Minneapolis. He also owned or co …
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. Whitaker attended the University of Iowa, receiving a bachelor's degree in communications in 1991 and Master of Business Administration and Juris Doctor degrees in 1995.
Whitaker stated in a question-and-answer session during his 2014 Iowa Senatorial campaign that "the courts are supposed to be the inferior branch". Whitaker was critical of the U.S. 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 La…
• Above the Law: The Inside Story of How the Justice Department Tried to Subvert President Trump. Regnery Publishing. 2020. ISBN 978-1684510498.
• Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (July–December 2018)