Dec 15, 2020 · Jeffrey Rosen will be taking over as acting attorney general following Attorney General William Barr 's resignation. Rosen previously served as deputy attorney general, a position to which he was...
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has announced his resignation from the Cabinet of the Obama Administration. Holder has held the position of Attorney General since 2009, and his achievements include spearheading legal action against the banks responsible for the 2008 financial crisis. As the first African-American to be named Attorney General, Holder has also …
Nov 07, 2018 · But before that changeover happens, Sessions’ temporary replacement, Matthew Whitaker, could do plenty of damage. Whitaker, who was Sessions’ chief of staff, will now serve as acting attorney...
Jul 02, 2020 · By David Shortell, Evan Perez and Kara Scannell, CNN Updated 4:41 PM ET, Thu July 2, 2020 (CNN) The Justice Department is considering replacing the US attorney in Brooklyn with a senior department...
Attorney General | Years of service |
---|---|
Merrick Garland | 2021-Present |
John Macpherson Berrien | 1829-1831 |
William Wirt | 1817-1829 |
Richard Rush | 1814-1817 |
Matthew Rodriguez | 2021 – 2021 |
---|---|
John K. Van de Kamp | 1983 – 1991 |
George Deukemejian | 1979 – 1983 |
Evelle J. Younger | 1971 – 1979 |
Thomas C. Lynch | 1964 – 1971 |
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]
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
On July 11, 2007, Sara Taylor, former top aide to Karl Rove, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Throughout Taylor's testimony, she refused to answer many questions, saying "I have a very clear letter from [White House counsel] Mr. [Fred] Fielding. That letter says and has asked me to follow the president's assertion of executive privilege ." Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) dismissed the claims and warned Taylor she was "in danger of drawing a criminal contempt of Congress citation". Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) took issue with the claim as well, telling Taylor