The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all legal matters. The attorney general is a statutory member of the Cabinet of the United States.
Alberto R. Gonzales is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General from 2005 to 2007 and is the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive government to date. He previously served as Secretary of State of Texas,as a Texas Supreme Court Justice,and as White House Counsel,becoming the first Hispanic to hold that office.
John Larkin McKay is a former United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington.
Timothy Elliott Flanigan is an American lawyer and politician. On May 24,2005,President George W. Bush nominated him as Deputy Attorney General of the United States,the second highest position in the Department of Justice. On October 7,2005,his name was withdrawn from consideration. He was replaced by Paul McNulty.
Paul Joseph McNulty is an American attorney and university administrator who is currently the ninth president of Grove City College. He served as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States from March 17,2006,to July 26,2007. Prior to that,he was the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Peter Douglas Keisler is an American lawyer whose 2006 nomination by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit became embroiled in partisan controversy. He is a partner at the firm of Sidley Austin in Washington,D.C.,and used to be the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. Upon the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,until November 9,2007,he was also the Acting Attorney General of the United States.
Michael Bernard Mukasey is an American lawyer and jurist who served as the 81st Attorney General of the United States from 2007 to 2009 and as a U.S. district judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1987 to 2006.
On December 7,2006,the George W. Bush administration's Department of Justice ordered the midterm dismissal of seven United States attorneys. Congressional investigations focused on whether the Department of Justice and the White House were using the U.S. attorney positions for political advantage. The 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. The U.S. attorneys were replaced with interim appointees under provisions in the 2005 USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization.
John Timothy Griffin is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 57th attorney general of Arkansas. He previously served as the 20th lieutenant governor of Arkansas,from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party,he previously was the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas between 2006 and 2007 and U.S. Representative for Arkansas's 2nd congressional district from 2011 to 2015.
Monica Marie Goodling is a former United States government lawyer and Republican political appointee in the George W. Bush administration who is best known for her role in the Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys Controversy in 2006. She was the principal deputy director of public affairs for the United States Department of Justice,serving under Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales. A Department of Justice investigation concluded that she had violated the law,but she was not prosecuted because she had been granted immunity in exchange for her testimony. The Virginia State Bar publicly reprimanded Goodling in May 2011 for having "improperly utilized political affiliation and other political considerations when making hiring decisions for career positions."
During the 2007 Congressional investigation of the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys,it was discovered that administration officials had been using a private Internet domain,called gwb43.com,owned by and hosted on an email server run by the Republican National Committee,for various official communications. The domain name is an abbreviation for "George W. Bush,43rd" President of the United States. The use of this email domain became public when it was discovered that Scott Jennings,the White House's deputy director of political affairs,was using a gwb43.com email address to discuss the firing of the U.S. attorney for Arkansas. Communications by federal employees were also found on georgewbush.com and rnchq.org. Congressional requests for administration documents while investigating the dismissals of the U.S. attorneys required the Bush administration to reveal that not all internal White House emails were available. Conducting governmental business in this manner is a possible violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. Over 5 million emails may have been lost. Greg Palast claims to have come up with 500 of the Karl Rove emails,leading to damaging allegations. In 2009,it was announced that as many as 22 million emails may have been lost.
This article about dismissed U.S. attorneys summarizes the circumstances surrounding a number of U.S. attorneys dismissed from office in the United States Department of Justice in 2006. Eight were dismissed In December 2006,and others may have been forced out of office under similar circumstances in 2005 and 2006. The manner of the firings,the congressional response to them,and the explanations offered by Bush administration officials are aspects of a political controversy starting in the first quarter of 2007. As of May 2007 a clear explanation of why the attorneys were dismissed had not been put forward by the Bush administration or the Department of Justice leadership. There are in total 93 U.S. attorneys that serve 94 Federal district courts.
A detailed chronology of events in the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy.
Patrick F. Philbin is an American lawyer who served as Deputy Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President in the Office of White House Counsel in the Donald J. Trump administration. He previously served in the Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration.
The United States House Committee on the Judiciary and the Senate Committee on the Judiciary,have oversight authority over Department of Justice (DOJ). In 2007 it conducted public and closed-door oversight and investigative hearings on the DOJ's interactions with the White House and staff members of the Executive Office of the President. A routine oversight hearing on January 18,2007 by the Senate committee was the first public congressional occasion that Attorney General Gonzales responded to questions about dismissed United States Attorneys (USAs). Both committees invited or subpoenaed past and present Department of Justice officers and staff to appear and testify during 2007,and both committees requested or subpoenaed documents,and made the documents that were produced publicly available.
Bruce Fein is an American lawyer who specializes in constitutional and international law. Fein has written numerous articles on constitutional issues for The Washington Times,Slate.com,The New York Times,The Huffington Post and Legal Times,and is active on civil liberties issues. He has worked for the American Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation,both conservative think tanks,as an analyst and commentator.
McGuireWoods LLP is a US-based international law firm. Their largest offices are in Richmond,Virginia,Charlotte,North Carolina,and Chicago,Illinois.
The President's Surveillance Program (PSP) is a collection of secret intelligence activities authorized by the President of the United States George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks in 2001 as part of the War on Terrorism. Information collected under this program was protected within a Sensitive Compartmented Information security compartment codenamed STELLARWIND.
Rachel Lee Brand is an American lawyer,academic,and former government official. She served as the United States Associate Attorney General from May 22,2017,until February 20,2018,when she resigned to take a job as head of global corporate governance at Walmart. Brand was the first woman to serve as Associate Attorney General. She also served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy in the George W. Bush administration and was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Prior to becoming Associate Attorney General,Brand was an associate professor at Antonin Scalia Law School.
George Zachary Terwilliger is an American attorney who served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia from May 25,2018 to January 15,2021.
