| ||
|---|---|---|
Business and personal 45th & 47th President of the United States Tenure
Impeachments Civil and criminal prosecutions   | ||
| ||
|---|---|---|
Business and personal 45th & 47th President of the United States Tenure
Impeachments Civil and criminal prosecutions | ||
Denotes appointees serving in offices that did not require Senate confirmation.
Denotes appointees confirmed by the Senate.
Denotes appointees serving in an acting capacity.
Denotes appointees who have left office or offices which have been disbanded.
Denotes nominees who were withdrawn prior to being confirmed or assuming office.
| Office | Name | Took office | Left office | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Attorney General |  Jeff Sessions | February 8, 2017 | November 7, 2018 | Resigned at the request of President Trump. Replaced temporarily with Matthew Whitaker. [22] |
 | February 14, 2019 | December 23, 2020 | Resigned. President Trump announced Barr's departure in December and the Attorney General subsequently confirmed it. [23] | |
 Sally Yates | January 20, 2017 | January 30, 2017 | Dismissed by President Trump on January 30, after she instructed the Justice Department not to make legal arguments defending Executive Order 13769. | |
| Deputy Attorney General | January 10, 2015 | January 30, 2017 | ||
 General Counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation |  Dana Boente | January 23, 2018 | May 30, 2020 | [24] |
| Attorney General | January 30, 2017 | February 9, 2017 | ||
| Deputy Attorney General | February 9, 2017 | April 25, 2017 | ||
 Rod Rosenstein | April 26, 2017 | May 11, 2019 | Despite numerous reports of his resignation or firing, he lasted through the release of the Mueller Report and the appointments of AG Barr and DAG Rosen. | |
| Assistant Attorney General (Civil Rights Division) |  | November 1, 2018 | January 8, 2021 | Resignation announced by the Department of Justice on January 7, 2021. [25] The New York Times noted that his resignation did not specifically refer to the events of the prior day. [26] |
| Assistant Attorney General (Civil Division) |  Jody Hunt | September 4, 2018 | July 3, 2020 | [27] |
| Chief of Staff to the Attorney General | February 2017 | September 22, 2017 | ||
 Matthew Whitaker | September 22, 2017 | November 7, 2018 | [28] | |
| Attorney General | November 7, 2018 | February 14, 2019 | ||
| Senior Counselor in the Office of the Associate Attorney General | February 15, 2019 | March 2, 2019 | ||
| Solicitor General |  Noel Francisco | January 23, 2017 | March 10, 2017 | |
| September 19, 2017 | July 3, 2020 | [29] | ||
| Jeff Wall | March 10, 2017 | September 19, 2017 | ||
| Associate Attorney General |  Rachel Brand | May 22, 2017 | February 20, 2018 | Resigned to take a job as head of global corporate governance at Walmart. [30] |
 Jesse Panuccio | February 2017 | May 22, 2017 | ||
| February 21, 2018 | May 3, 2019 | |||
| Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General | February 2017 | May 14, 2019 | ||
| Assistant Attorney General (Criminal Division) |  Brian Benczkowski | July 16, 2018 | July 3, 2020 | [31] |
| Deputy Assistant Attorney General (Antitrust Division) | Donald Kempf Jr. | 2017 | 2018 | Resigned over an investigation into his misconduct. [32] |
| United States Attorneys | Various | March 10, 2017 | On March 10, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions requested the resignations of 46 United States Attorneys. [33] Trump declined to accept the resignations of Dana Boente, who was serving as Acting Deputy Attorney General, and Rod Rosenstein, whom Trump had selected to become Deputy Attorney General. [34] [35] [36] Trump also allowed Deirdre M. Daly and Richard S. Hartunian to remain in office for a period of several months until they completed 20 years of service at the Justice Department. [37] | |
| U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York |  Preet Bharara | August 13, 2009 | March 11, 2017 | Bharara refused to resign and was fired. [38] [39] |
 Geoffrey Berman | January 5, 2018 | June 20, 2020 | On June 19, Barr announced that Berman was stepping down, Craig Carpenito would be acting U.S. Attorney, and Jay Clayton would be nominated as Berman's permanent replacement. Berman countered that he had no intention to resign. He agreed to leave after Barr relented and named Audrey Strauss to be acting U.S. Attorney, preserving the integrity of SDNY. [40] | |
| U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia |  Jessie K. Liu | September 24, 2017 | January 31, 2020 | Trump nominated Liu to be Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, then withdrew the nomination on February 11, 2020. [41] |
| Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Columbia | Jonathan Kravis | February 11, 2020 | Kravis and Zelinsky resigned when the Attorney General refused to support their sentencing recommendations for Roger Stone. Two other Assistant U.S. Attorneys, Adam Jed and Mike Marando, withdrew from the case. [42] | |
| Aaron Zelinsky | ||||
| U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia |  B. J. Pak | October 10, 2017 | January 4, 2021 | Resigned rather than support Trump's false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Trump also considered firing Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and replacing him with Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, who was willing to challenge the election results. [43] |
| Director of the Election Crimes Branch | Richard Pilger | March 2010 | November 9, 2020 | Resigned in protest after Attorney General Barr gave an authorization for federal prosecutors to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, going against longstanding guidance. [44] |
| Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation |  James Comey | September 4, 2013 | May 9, 2017 | Statements from Trump and the White House suggested he had been dismissed to ease the "pressure" on Trump due to the Russia investigation. [45] [46] [47] Later that month he arranged for a friend to tell the press about a memo he had written after a February 14 private meeting with the president. It said Trump had asked him to end the FBI's investigation into Michael Flynn, the former National Security Advisor. His dismissal, the memo, and Comey's subsequent Congressional testimony were interpreted by some commentators as evidence of obstruction of justice and became part of a widening investigation by Robert Mueller, the Special Counsel appointed to probe Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. [48] |
 Andrew McCabe | May 9, 2017 | August 2, 2017 | ||
| Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation | February 1, 2016 | January 29, 2018 | Resigned after being repeatedly taunted by President Trump. [49] [50] He then went on paid leave until his scheduled retirement date of March 18, 2018. [51] On March 16, 2018, Jeff Sessions fired McCabe 26 hours before his scheduled retirement. [52] [53] Sessions said he based his action on reports from the DOJ Inspector General and the FBI's disciplinary office saying that McCabe had made unauthorized releases of information to the media and had "lacked candor" in talking about it. McCabe denied he had ever been dishonest and charged that his firing was politically motivated. [54] [55] [56] | |
| Assistant Director for Public Affairs for the Federal Bureau of Investigation | Michael Kortan | September 2009 | February 2018 | [57] |
| Deputy Assistant Director, FBI Counterintelligence Division |  Peter Strzok | August 10, 2018 | Fired for anti-Trump text messages. [58] | |
 Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons |  Mark Inch | September 18, 2017 | May 18, 2018 | |
| Hugh Hurwitz | May 2018 | August 19, 2019 | Removed after Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide while in Federal custody. | |
 Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration |  Robert W. Patterson | October 1, 2017 | July 2, 2018 | Retired. |
| Office | Nominee | Assumed office | Left office |
|---|---|---|---|
 Attorney General |  Pam Bondi [59] | Awaiting Senate Confirmation | |
| Deputy Attorney General |  Todd Blanche [60] | ||
| Solicitor General | D. John Sauer [61] | ||
| Assistant Attorney General (Antitrust Division) |  Gail Slater [62] | ||
| Assistant Attorney General (Civil Rights Division) |  Harmeet Dhillon [63] | ||
| Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General | Emil Bove [64] | January 20, 2025 | |
| Federal Bureau of Investigation | |||
| Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation |  Kash Patel [65] | Awaiting Senate Confirmation | |
| United States Attorneys | |||
| U.S. Attorney for the S.D. of New York |  Jay Clayton [66] | Awaiting Senate Confirmation | |
The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) 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.
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is an American politician and attorney who served as the 84th United States attorney general from 2017 to 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as United States senator from Alabama from 1997 to 2017 before resigning that position to serve as attorney general in the administration of President Donald Trump. Trump fired Sessions in 2018 due to his inaction and recusal from the Russian collusion probes.
James Brien Comey Jr. is an American lawyer who was the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his termination in May 2017. Comey was a registered Republican for most of his adult life but in 2016 he stated he was unaffiliated.
Alice Stevens Fisher is an American lawyer and partner at the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins LLP. Fisher served as Deputy United States Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division from 2001 to 2003 and as an Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice Criminal Division for three years, from 2005 to May 23, 2008.
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a United States federal law enforcement agency, and is responsible for its day-to-day operations. The FBI director is appointed for a single 10-year term by the president of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. The FBI is an agency within the Department of Justice (DOJ), and thus the director reports to the attorney general of the United States.
William Pelham Barr is an American attorney who served as United States attorney general in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1991 to 1993 and again in the administration of President Donald Trump from 2019 to 2020.
A detailed chronology of events in the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy.
Rod Jay Rosenstein is an American attorney who served as the 37th United States deputy attorney general from 2017 to 2019. Prior to his appointment, he served as a United States attorney for the District of Maryland. At the time of his confirmation as deputy attorney general in April 2017, he was the longest-serving U.S. attorney. Rosenstein had also been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 2007, but his nomination was never considered by the U.S. Senate.
Loretta Elizabeth Lynch is an American lawyer who served as the 83rd attorney general of the United States from 2015 to 2017. She was appointed by President Barack Obama to succeed Eric Holder and previously served as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York under Presidents Bill Clinton (1999–2001), George W. Bush (2001) and Obama (2010–2015). As a U.S. attorney, Lynch oversaw federal prosecutions in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island.
Sally Quillian Yates is an American lawyer. From 2010 to 2015, she was United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. In 2015, she was appointed United States Deputy Attorney General by President Barack Obama. Following the inauguration of President Donald Trump and the departure of Attorney General Loretta Lynch on January 20, 2017, Yates served as Acting Attorney General for 10 days.
Andrew George McCabe is an American attorney who served as the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from February 2016 to March 2018 and as the acting Director of the FBI from May 9, 2017, to August 2, 2017. He also serves as a professor at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government. McCabe joined the FBI as a special agent in 1996 and served with the bureau's SWAT team. He became a supervisory special agent in 2003 and held management positions of increasing responsibility until he was appointed deputy director of the FBI in February 2016. McCabe became the acting Director of the FBI following James Comey's dismissal by then President Donald Trump, and served in that position until Trump's appointment of Christopher A. Wray. McCabe later departed from the FBI on poor terms with Trump. After leaving the Trump administration, McCabe has been a contributor at CNN since 2019.
James Comey, the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), was fired by U.S. President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017. Comey had been criticized in 2016 for his handling of the FBI's investigation of the Hillary Clinton email controversy and in 2017 for the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections as it related to alleged collusion with Trump's presidential campaign.
Christopher Asher Wray is an American attorney who is the eighth and current director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was nominated by President Donald Trump to replace James Comey. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 30. Wray took office on August 2, 2017 to serve a 10-year term.
The Robert Mueller special counsel investigation was an investigation into 45th U.S. president Donald Trump regarding Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019. It was also called the Russia investigation, Mueller probe, and Mueller investigation. The investigation focused on three points:
Jessie Kong Liu is an American lawyer who was the United States attorney for the District of Columbia. She previously worked as deputy general counsel at the U.S. Treasury and served at the Justice Department. In 2020, she joined the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom as a partner.
Peter Paul Strzok II is a former United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent. He was the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division and led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Previously, he had been the chief of the division's Counterespionage Section and led the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server.
Reactions to the Special Counsel investigation of any Russian government efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election have been widely varied and have evolved over time. An initial period of bipartisan support and praise for the selection of former FBI director Robert Mueller to lead the Special Counsel investigation gave way to some degree of partisan division over the scope of the investigation, the composition of the investigative teams, and its findings and conclusions.
The Russia investigation origins counter-narrative, or Russia counter-narrative, is a narrative embraced by Donald Trump, Republican Party leaders, and right-wing conservatives attacking the legitimacy and conclusions of investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, and the links between Russian intelligence and Trump associates. The counter-narrative includes conspiracy theories such as Spygate, accusations of a secretive, elite "deep state" network, and other false and debunked claims. Trump in particular has attacked not only the origins but the conclusions of the investigation, and ordered a review of the Mueller report, which was conducted by attorney general William Barr – alleging there was a "deep state plot" to undermine him. He has claimed the investigations were an "illegal hoax", and that the "real collusion" was between Hillary Clinton, Democrats, and Russia – and later, Ukraine.
United States v. Flynn was a criminal case in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia which was dismissed without any convictions in December 2020 following a presidential pardon. Michael Flynn, a retired lieutenant general in the United States Armed Forces, had accepted President-elect Donald Trump's offer for the position of National Security Advisor in 2016 and then briefly served as National Security Advisor. He pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Flynn's alleged false statements involve conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when Flynn was incoming National Security Advisor to President-elect Trump, and Flynn agreed to cooperate with the Special Counsel investigation as part of a plea deal.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
