With all the ongoing threads on the attorneys purge, we should have one to discuss just what we should expect in a situation like this. It would be unreasonable to expect no political influence by the WH on the JD – the president is as responsible for federal law enforcement as for anything else in the various departments, and will be politically judged on how effective it is on his watch. And the “unitary executive” theory would mandate that all executive departments are equally tools to implement presidential policy. But the Justice Department is also responsible for policing and investigating the executive branch itself. How can it do that effectively if the president has the authority to micromanage its policies?
This is not a constitutional question. The Justice Department is a statutory creation, nowhere mentioned in the Constitution.
Well, to begin with, the “unitary executive” is not in the constitution either.
AFAIK the current situation is that yes, the JD answers to the President, however congress has the right to check if the JD members appointed are qualified.
Regarding the latest unpleasantly, the patriot act was used to evade the oversight of congress (A really bad move that almost all Republicans joined the Democrats in voting to dump that loop hole) and it seems that people who were doing their job too well were given the axe while people who did the partisan way of not doing much to prosecute Republicans and doing more to prosecute Democrats were spared.
IMO what happened to the 8 fired prosecutors is only the tip of the iceberg, congress needs to investigate what was not prosecuted for partisan reasons.
Actually this, and a few past instances like John Mitchell with Watergate (there’s a good Democratic example too, which I’m drawing a blank on ATM), say to me that the whole idea of the Attorney General and Justice Department being part of the Executive Branch, at the orders of the president, is playing with fire. Perhaps it’s time to look at electing the Attorney General separately on a national ticket, much as some states do. I think that can be done simply by statute; there’s nothing defining the Attorney General’s office as one of the heads of the departments of government to be appointed by the president (the Secretaries, as distinguished from, say, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, insulated from the Executive Branch). There’s precedent in the Postmaster General no longer being a cabinet office.
Given as the President has to work directly with the Attorney General, I can maaaybe see that position changing by president, but comparing this to the FBi or such, I doubt you’re ever going to find anyone arguing that everyone in the FBI should automatically tender their resignation the instant a new president takes office. That essentially is just asking for “law enforcement” to stop becoming law enforcement and become rather “the will of the president”. And of course it also is meaning that over 50% of the potential candidates for the position are automatically lost, regardless of how skilled they might be.
It would also require a lot more overhead than really necessary just to accomplish limitting Executive power. You could just swing the Department of Justice under the Judiciary branch for instance.
No state does it that way, AFAIK. The Florida Bar is an arm of the Florida Supreme Court, but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement answers to the governor.
That brings up another point. As with most political reforms and innovations, any proposed solution probably would best be tried out on the state level first, to assess results and work out the bugs.
Huh. And oddly enough, separately appointed AG’s are to be found in every state but Alaska, Hawaii, New Jersey, Wyoming, & New Hampshire. Tennessee’s Supreme Court appoints their AG, & Maine’s legislature apoints the AG.
Wikipedia doesn’t have a lot on this yet, somebody find me a primary source. Am I to assume that in 43 of 50 states, the AG is elected popularly?
I don’t think we should wait for someone to try BrainGlutton’s “Tribunate.” Let’s have the AG chosen by joint session of Congress or the Electioral College; or pick USA’s by some variation of the “Missouri Plan” ( Missouri Plan - Wikipedia ) which some states use to pick judges. (OK, to be fair, no one uses that for state AG’s. But it could sort of work.)
But he should not serve at the pleasure of the Prez.
I think his loyalty should be to the rule of law and the Constitution. He should not have a staff spending its time looking for loopholes to justify the governments policies.