Jun 21, 2020 · Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, arrived at his office in New York on Saturday hours after defying the attorney general’s attempt to fire him.
Aug 27, 2009 · The president can fire the attorney general. O bama administration spokesmen are portraying the president as unable to overrule Attorney …
Jan 31, 2017 · Who is above the United states attorney general? The U.S. attorney general is appointed by the President of the United States and serves at the pleasure of the President. The President has the...
Yes, the President’s cabinet serves at the pleasure of the President. He can legally fire the Attorney General anytime for any reason. However that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be a political price to pay. Firing AG Sessions would reinforce the idea that Trump is hiding something.
United States Attorney General | |
---|---|
Reports to | President of the United States |
Seat | Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building Washington, D.C. |
Appointer | President of the United States with United States Senate advice and consent |
Term length | No fixed term |
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.
The title "attorney general" is an example of a noun (attorney) followed by a postpositive adjective(general).[8]". General" is a description of the type of attorney, not a title or rank in itself (as it would be in the military).[8]
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."
Sampson's replacement as the Attorney General's temporary chief of staff was U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Chuck Rosenberg. Rosenberg initiated a DOJ inquiry into possibly inappropriate political considerations in Monica Goodling's hiring practices for civil service staff. Civil service positions are not political appointments and must be made on a nonpartisan basis. In one example, Jeffrey A. Taylor, former interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, tried to hire a new career prosecutor, Seth Adam Meinero, in the fall of 2006. Goodling judged Meinero too "liberal" and declined to approve the hire. Meinero, a Howard University law school graduate who had worked on civil rights cases at the Environmental Protection Agency, was serving as a special assistant prosecutor in Taylor's office. Taylor went around Goodling, and demanded Sampson's approval to make the hire. In another example, Goodling removed an attorney from her job at the Department of Justice because she was rumored to be a lesbian, and, further, blocked the attorney from getting other Justice Department jobs she was qualified for. Rules concerning hiring at the Justice department forbid discrimination based on sexual orientation.
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.
Attorney General Gonzales, in a confidential memorandum dated March 1, 2006, delegated authority to senior DOJ staff Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson to hire and dismiss political appointees and some civil service positions.
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.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy stated that Congress has the authority to subpoena Justice Department and White House officials including chief political advisor to the president Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers. On March 20, President Bush declared in a press conference that his aides would not testify under oath on the matter if subpoenaed by Congress. Bush explained his position saying,
A number of members of both houses of Congress publicly said Gonzales should resign, or be fired by Bush. On March 14, 2007, Senator John E. Sununu ( R, New Hampshire) became the first Republican lawmaker to call for Gonzales' resignation. Sununu cited not only the controversial firings but growing concern over the use of the USA PATRIOT Act and misuse of national security letters by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Calls for his ousting intensified after his testimony on April 19, 2007. By May 16, at least twenty-two Senators and seven Members of the House of Representatives — including Senators Hillary Clinton ( D, New York) and Mark Pryor ( D, Arkansas )— had called for Gonzales' resignation.