why was attorney general fired unbiased conservative reviews

by Narciso O'Hara 8 min read

Why were attorneys fired from the Department of Justice?

 · President Trump fired his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, after complaining that Sessions had failed to protect him from a special counsel investigation. ... of Barr's conservative values ...

What was the controversy surrounding the dismissals of US Attorneys?

 · Frustration over the lack of prosecution in the Jan. 6 investigation has bubbled over into online outrage from liberals demanding that Attorney General Merrick Garland be replaced. The furor was fomented by a screed issued by former congresswoman Clare McCaskill on MSNBC where she outlined Democrats' accusations against former President Donald ...

Is it weird to ask an attorney general to leave office?

 · That effort to right a previous wrong to Garland is understandable but not necessarily wise: McConnell got to fill Scalia's seat with arch-conservative Neil Gorsuch, then 49, and having Garland ...

Why did the White House lose emails about firing lawyers?

 · Conservative Review is best known for its Liberty Score, in which they rate politicians on their conservative voting records. The Liberty Score has been used widely and is occasionally used to aid in fact-checking. Editorially, all stories reviewed favor the right while some denigrate the left. Finally, during the Coronavirus pandemic, they ...

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 is the attorney general nominee for 2021?

Merrick Garland delivers remarks after being nominated U.S. attorney general by President-elect Joe Biden in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 7, 2021. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.

Who was Jeff Sessions?

Former Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., was a malicious authoritarian whom a Republican-controlled Senate had previously considered too racist to be a federal judge. William Barr, who seemed to conceive of his role as being Trump's personal attorney, was somehow a step down even from Sessions.

Is Biden making Garland the best idea?

Biden making Merrick Garland attorney general isn't the best idea. It also isn't the worst one. Biden making Merrick Garland attorney general isn't the best idea. It also isn't the worst one. The nominee is much like the president-elect: competent but boring with a few glaring flaws from the perspective of progressives.

Who did McConnell fill Scalia's seat with?

That effort to right a previous wrong to Garland is understandable but not necessarily wise: McConnell got to fill Scalia's seat with arch-conservative Neil Gorsuch, then 49, and having Garland serve a couple of years as Biden's attorney general is a revenge with which McConnell can presumably live quite comfortably.

Is Garland owed a seat on the Supreme Court?

Nobody is owed a seat on the Supreme Court; Garland didn't need to be made whole. He should have been chosen as Biden's attorney general if he was the best choice on the merits, and here there are real concerns. As many liberal skeptics noted when he was a Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Garland is a former prosecutor whose record on civil liberties ...

Did Garland get a fair hearing?

And while one can sympathize with Garland's being so close to a lifelong goal and then not even getting a fair hearing, he still had a life-tenured position on the most powerful federal circuit court. Nobody is owed a seat on the Supreme Court; Garland didn't need to be made whole.

Was Garland's nomination made clear?

After all, it is assuredly not a coincidence that Garland's nomination was made clear only after the Democratic Party had apparently regained control of the Senate by sweeping Georgia's Senate runoffs ; the race for Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler's seat was called in favor of Raphael Warnock on Tuesday night, and the close race for the seat held until recently by Republican Sen. David Perdue was trending well in favor of challenger Jon Ossoff before it was called in Ossoff's favor during the violence at the Capitol.

Who is the editor of Conservative Review?

The Website’s Editor-in-Chief is Mark Levin, who has a poor track record with facts. As of 2021, Conservative Review is a news aggregation/curation website and no longer offers CRTV.

When was Conservative Review founded?

Founded in 2014, Conservative Review claims on their website that they “provide best-in-class analysis and commentary on conservative political speech, votes, positions, and elections.”.

Who is Biden's running mate?

Joe Biden has chosen Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate for the 2020 election. Last year, Sen. Harris was a frontrunner among the numerous Democratic candidates running for president. However, Harris' history as a prosecutor and attorney general in the state of California was a touchy subject and cause for concern long ...

Why did California reduce its prison population?

In 2011, the Supreme Court demanded the state of California reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates in the next two years due to overpopulation resulting in starvation, inhumane treatment and even death , according to NPR. However in 2014, according to the LA Times, federal judges "ordered that all nonviolent second-strike offenders be eligible for parole after serving half their sentence."

What did conservatives fight back?

At first, conservatives fought back by founding their own magazines ; after Watergate and in the midst of the Reagan administration and liberals' contempt for him, organizations like the Media Research Center began cataloguing the myriad examples of biased coverage, both large and small.

What percentage of Americans believe the media is biased?

Americans in general have begun to catch on: 66 percent of Americans believe that the media has a hard time separating fact from opinion and, according to a recent Gallup poll, 62 percent of the country believes that the press is biased one way or the other in their reporting.

Did Mitt Romney have binders full of women?

His sin? Saying that he had “binders full of women” that he was looking at appointing to key positions were he elected president. Sure, it was an awkward way of stating a fairly innocuous fact about how elected executives begin their transition efforts — with resumes of candidates for every position under the sun —- well before an election is held. Yet, the media and commentators came for Mitt Romney and they did so with guns blazing, as he was portrayed as an anti-woman extremist... for making a concerted effort to hire women to serve in his administration as governor of Massachusetts.

Is media bias against conservatives real?

Media bias against conservatives is real, and part of the reason no one trusts the news now. It might not be conscious, but the way that reporters treat conservatives in their coverage has always shown their liberal leanings. President Donald Trump speaks at the United States Steel Granite City Works plant on July 26, 2018, in Granite City, ...

Did conservatives get upset at Obama's end?

Conservatives were rightly upset when at the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, the USA Today editorial board parroted, almost verbatim, a claim of the then president’s that his administration had been scandal-free. While this was done by the editorial board of a major newspaper, the line was repeated by many journalists, including by NBC News’ Tom Brokaw, despite Republican investigations into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, the investigation into the ATF's Fast and Furious program and the investigation into the Obama Administration's federal guarantees for Solyndra, among others.

Does conscious bias engender trust in the media?

Conscious bias or not , such practices do not engender trust in the media amongst conservatives. They only reinforce the belief that the media seeks to defend their ideological allies on the left and persecute those on the right while claiming to be objective.

Was Evan Siegfried an anti-woman?

By Evan Siegfried. Members of the media were shocked as he was supposedly revealed as incredibly anti-woman presidential candidate, perhaps even the most ever nomina ted by a major political party in the modern era. He had admitted that he reduced women to objects and the Democrats pounced, seeking to make him lose him the support of women and, ...

Who was the lead counsel in the NorCal case?

In the separate NorCal case, plaintiffs' lead counsel Eddie Greim told NPR an IRS apology alone was not sufficient to end the matter. But he declined to reveal the financial settlement amount.

What happened after the IRS confession?

After the IRS confession in 2013, its top echelons were quickly cleaned out. Conservative groups sued. Congressional Republicans launched what became years of hearings, amid allegations the Obama White House had ordered the targeting.

What is the IRS' apology for mistreating Linchpins of Liberty?

In a legal settlement that still awaits a federal judge's approval, the IRS "expresses its sincere apology" for mistreating a conservative organization called Linchpins of Liberty — along with 40 other conservative groups — in their applications for tax-exempt status.

When did the IRS step up its scrutiny?

The IRS stepped up its scrutiny around 2010, as applications for tax-exempt status surged. Tea Party groups were organizing, and court decisions had eased the rules for tax-exempt groups to participate in politics.

When did the IRS settle the Tea Party controversy?

The settlements may not put the fierce controversy over IRS conduct to rest, but they mark the most significant resolution so far. The controversy began in 2013 when an IRS official admitted the agency had been aggressively scrutinizing groups with names such as "Tea Party" and "Patriots.".

Is the IRS apologizing for aggressive scrutiny?

IRS Apologizes For Aggressive Scrutiny Of Conservative Groups Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced settlements in two long-running cases against the IRS, saying, "There's no excuse" for the agency's treatment of the groups, which sought tax-exempt status. NPR.

Is the Linchpins settlement a real apology?

Some conservative groups said Thursday the Linchpins settlement offers the first real apology from the agency. Catherine Engelbrecht of True The Vote, with its own IRS lawsuit, said, "For the first time, the IRS admitted their discrimination against conservative groups was wrong and unlawful.". A three-point declaratory judgment in ...

When did Giuliani's office of legal counsel establish the law?

At the meeting, Giuliani wanted to nail down a commitment from Mueller to follow a Justice Department policy, established by its Office of Legal Counsel (O.L.C.) in 1973 and reaffirmed in 2000, barring the indictment of a sitting President.

How long was Robert Mueller a federal prosecutor?

W. Bush Administration, and then, starting in 2001, the F.B.I. director for twelve years .

How many times did Mueller say he had no recall?

Mueller and his staff had low expectations for Trump’s answers; the President didn’t meet them. He said twenty-two times that he failed to “recall,” and twelve times that he had no “recollection.”. Mueller’s prosecutors did what they could at that late date: they wrote a letter.

What did the Comey-Trump encounters lead to?

The Comey-Trump encounters had led the F.B.I. to open a criminal investigation of the President for obstruction of justice shortly before Mueller was appointed. Trump’s pointed request for Comey’s “loyalty” could almost have been mistaken as the behavior of a novice.

What did McCabe tell Mueller about Flynn?

McCabe told Mueller that Flynn had apparently lied to the agents about his conversations with Kislyak , and said that those statements should be on Mueller’s agenda, too. There was also the issue of possible obstruction of justice once Trump became President.

How many times has the President tweeted about Mueller?

The President has tweeted about Mueller more than three hundred times, and has repeatedly referred to the special counsel’s investigation as a “scam” and a “hoax.”. Barr and Graham agree that the Mueller investigation was illegitimate in conception and excessive in execution—in Barr’s words, “a grave injustice” that was “unprecedented in American ...

What was the purpose of McCabe's briefing with Mueller?

These meetings demonstrate that, from the beginning, Mueller was instructed to conduct a narrow, fact-based criminal investigation.

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).