 | This article needs to be updated.(November 2010) |
Jeffrey A. Taylor is the former interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School.
| This article needs to be updated.(November 2010) |
Jeffrey A. Taylor is the former interim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School.
Prior to his work in Washington, DC, Jeffrey Taylor served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California from 1995–1999. [1] From 1999 to 2002, Mr. Taylor served as majority counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee where he advised Chairman Orrin Hatch and drafted provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act. [2]
Before his appointment as U.S. Attorney, Mr. Taylor served as Counselor to Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales from 2002 to 2006 where he oversaw law enforcement operations by U.S. attorneys. [1] He was appointed interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia by Alberto Gonzales on September 22, 2006 and was sworn in seven days later; interim U.S. attorneys do not need to be confirmed by the Senate. [1] Interim U.S. attorneys have no term limit, as a result of an amendment to the law governing interim attorneys included in the USA Patriot Reauthorization Act of 2005; [2] formerly interim appointees had a 120-day term limit, and could be re-appointed (without term limit) at the end of the 120-day term by the chief judge of the district court. On May 28, 2009, Taylor announced his resignation. [3] It has been reported that he will join Ernst & Young. [4]
| Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy |
Mr. Taylor's position came under heightened interest in March 2007 during the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy. On March 20, 2007, President Bush declared in a press conference that White House staff would not testify under oath on the matter if subpoenaed by Congress. [5] One who ignores a Congressional subpoena can be held in contempt of Congress, but the D.C. U.S. Attorney must convene a grand jury to start the prosecution of this crime.
Under 2 U.S.C. § 194, once either the House or the Senate issues a citation for contempt of Congress, it is referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action." [6] It is unclear (as of March 20, 2007) whether Mr. Taylor would fulfill this duty to convene a grand jury, or resist Congress at the direction of Bush or Gonzales.
Executive privilege is the right of the president of the United States and other members of the executive branch to maintain confidential communications under certain circumstances within the executive branch and to resist some subpoenas and other oversight by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of particular information or personnel relating to those confidential communications. The right comes into effect when revealing information would impair governmental functions. Neither executive privilege nor the oversight power of Congress is explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution. However, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that executive privilege and congressional oversight each are a consequence of the doctrine of the separation of powers, derived from the supremacy of each branch in its own area of Constitutional activity.
Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically, the bribery of a U.S. senator or U.S. representative was considered contempt of Congress. In modern times, contempt of Congress has generally applied to the refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by a congressional committee or subcommittee—usually seeking to compel either testimony or the production of requested documents.
United States attorneys represent the United States federal government in United States district courts and United States courts of appeals.
Alberto R. Gonzales is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General, appointed in February 2005 by President George W. Bush, becoming the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive government to date. He was the first Hispanic to serve as White House Counsel. Earlier he had been Bush's General Counsel during the latter's governorship of Texas. Gonzales had also served as Secretary of State of Texas and then as a Texas Supreme Court Justice.
Harriet Ellan Miers is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party since 1988, she previously served as White House Staff Secretary from 2001 to 2003 and White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy from 2003 until 2005. In 2005, Miers was nominated by Bush to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, but—in the face of bipartisan opposition—asked Bush to withdraw her nomination. Following her withdrawal in 2007, Miers returned to private practice, becoming a partner in the litigation and public policy group at Locke Lord.
The following are controversial invocations of the USA PATRIOT Act. The stated purpose of the Act is to "deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes." One criticism of the Act is that "other purposes" often includes the detection and prosecution of non-terrorist alleged future crimes.
Reporter's privilege in the United States, is a "reporter's protection under constitutional or statutory law, from being compelled to testify about confidential information or sources." It may be described in the US as the qualified (limited) First Amendment or statutory right many jurisdictions have given to journalists in protecting their confidential sources from discovery.
Debra Ann Livingston is the Chief United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
On December 7, 2006, the George W. Bush Administration's Department of Justice ordered the unprecedented 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. 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.
D. Kyle Sampson was the Chief of Staff and Counselor of United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He resigned on March 12, 2007, amid the controversy surrounding the firing of eight United States Attorneys in 2006 and was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in July 2010. In October 2007, Sampson joined the law firm of Hunton & Williams LLP as a partner in the firm's food and drug practice, where his practice focuses on FDA regulatory and enforcement matters.
John Timothy Griffin is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 20th Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas since 2015. 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. Griffin defeated Democrat John Burkhalter in 2014 and has served under Governor Asa Hutchinson since holding the lieutenant governorship. In summer 2020, Griffin announced his candidacy for the 2022 Arkansas gubernatorial election, but withdrew from the race in February 2021 to run for Arkansas Attorney General instead.
Brett Tolman is a former United States Attorney for the District of Utah from July 2006 to December 2009. Before becoming U.S. Attorney, Tolman worked as counsel in the Senate Judiciary Committee for committee chairs Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and then Arlen Specter (R-PA) during the 109th United States Congress. Tolman’s most noteworthy work in the Senate is his role in the passage of the 2005 Patriot Act reauthorization. He was instrumental in the revisions to the appointment process of interim U.S. Attorneys and is a major figure in the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy.
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.
William Emil Moschella is an American lawyer and former Associate Deputy Attorney General.
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.
The various documents obtained by request or subpoena during dismissal of U.S attorneys controversy by both the United States House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary, originally produced by the Department of Justice (DOJ) or White House have been made available to the public and press via the two congressional judiciary committees' web sites. The documents received a great deal of attention in the United States press from March 2007 onward, and have been repeatedly cited or excerpted in news reports, editorials and analyses. The documents largely include copies of memoranda and email among leadership and key individuals within the United States Department of Justice, as well as key members of the Executive Office of the President, commonly termed White House.
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 subpoened 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.
The history of the USA PATRIOT Act involved many parties who opposed and supported the legislation, which was proposed, enacted and signed into law 45 days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The USA PATRIOT Act, though approved by large majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representative, was controversial, and parts of the law were invalidated or modified by successful legal challenges over constitutional infringements to civil liberties. The Act had several sunset provisions, most reauthorized by the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act. Both reauthorizations incorporated amendments to the original USA PATRIOT Act, and other federal laws.