The United States attorney general is the head of the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government. The attorney general acts as the principal legal advisor to the president of the United States on all legal matters. The attorney general is also a statutory member of the Cabinet of the United States and a member of the United States National Security Council. Additionally, the attorney general is seventh in the presidential line of succession.
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general is the main legal advisor to the government. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have executive responsibility for law enforcement, prosecutions or even responsibility for legal affairs generally. In practice, the extent to which the attorney general personally provides legal advice to the government varies between jurisdictions, and even between individual office-holders within the same jurisdiction, often depending on the level and nature of the office-holder's prior legal experience.
The White House chief of staff is the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, a cabinet position in the federal government of the United States.
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 the 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 area of constitutional activity.
Elliot Lee Richardson was an American lawyer and Republican politician. As a member of the cabinets of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford between 1970 and 1977, Richardson is one of two men in United States history to hold four cabinet positions. As United States Attorney General, Richardson played a prominent role in the Watergate scandal when he resigned in protest against President Nixon's order to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. His resignation precipitated a crisis of confidence in Nixon which ultimately led to the president's resignation.
William Pierce Rogers was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney. A member of the Republican Party, Rogers served as the 4th Deputy Attorney-General of the United States (1953–1957) and as the 63rd Attorney-General of the United States (1957–1961) in the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, and as the 55th Secretary of State (1969–1973) in the administration of Richard Nixon.
Herbert Brownell Jr. was an American lawyer and Republican politician. From 1953 to 1957, he served as United States Attorney General in the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
James Lee Rankin was the 31st United States Solicitor General.
The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is an office in the United States Department of Justice that supports the attorney general in their role as legal adviser to the president and all executive branch agencies. It drafts legal opinions of the attorney general and provides its own written opinions and other advice in response to requests from the counsel to the president, the various agencies of the executive branch, and other components of the Department of Justice. The office reviews and comments on the constitutionality of pending legislation. The office reviews any executive orders and substantive proclamations for legality if the president proposes them. All proposed orders of the attorney general and regulations that require the attorney general's approval are reviewed. It also performs a variety of special assignments referred by the attorney general or the deputy attorney general.
David Spears Addington is an American lawyer who was legal counsel (2001–2005) and chief of staff (2005–2009) to Vice President Dick Cheney. He was the vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation from 2010 to 2016.
Frank Ruben Jimenez became the 21st General Counsel of the U.S. Department of the Navy on September 25, 2006, following his nomination by George W. Bush and confirmation by the United States Senate. Jimenez served at the Navy after the change in administrations on January 20, 2009 until April 30, 2009 when he resigned to become Vice President and General Counsel at ITT Corporation.
A detailed chronology of events in the dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy.
Beth Nolan was vice president and general counsel of the George Washington University. She was also Bill Clinton's final White House Counsel, as well as the first woman to hold the office. Prior to serving as White House Counsel, Nolan worked in other White House and Department of Justice positions, taught law, and worked in private practice.
Elizabeth Merrill "Lisa" Brown is an American lawyer who is the current General Counsel of the United States Department of Education. She previously served as the first White House Staff Secretary in the Obama administration, assuming that post on January 20, 2009. Earlier, during the 2008–2009 presidential transition, she served as Co-Chair of Agency Review. Prior to joining the Obama Transition Team, she served as Executive Director of the American Constitution Society, a progressive legal organization.
Henry Roemer McPhee Jr. was an American government official who was Associate Special Counsel to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Ann Cook Whitman was an American secretary and government official who served as chief of staff to the vice president from 1974 to 1977, and personal secretary to President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961.
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.
James J. Eisenhower is an American lawyer and judge from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He is a judge on the Pennsylvania First Judicial District's Court of Common Pleas, Criminal Section. He was elected November 2023. He was previously a Judge of the Pennsylvania Court of Judicial Discipline and served as the President Judge of the Court. Eisenhower was Of Counsel at Philadelphia law firm Dilworth Paxson LLP.
The presidential transition of John F. Kennedy began when he won the 1960 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect of the United States, and ended when Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20, 1961. Kennedy had become president-elect once the election results became clear on November 9, 1960, the day after the election.
On January 9, 2023, CBS News reported that attorneys for U.S. President Joe Biden discovered classified government documents in his former office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., and in his personal residence in Wilmington, Delaware, dating to his time in the United States Senate and his vice presidency in the Obama administration. The number of documents was later revealed to be between 25 and 30. By June 2023, classified documents from Biden's Senate tenure were discovered in materials donated to the University of Delaware.
