Attorney General of the United States

The Judiciary Act of 1789 created the Attorney General to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States is concerned and to give advice on questions of law when asked by the President or department heads. Edmund Randolph was the first, and for eighty years the post was part-time, with no department beneath it, until Congress created the Justice Department in 1870. The Attorney General is nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and serves at the President's pleasure, and is seventh in the line of presidential succession.

The Attorney General directs the Justice Department, including the FBI, the U.S. Attorneys, and the department's litigating divisions, sets prosecution priorities, and has final say within the executive branch on legal positions, through the opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel. The Attorney General decides whether to appoint special counsels to investigate matters in which the department has a conflict, a power used in investigations of presidents of both parties. The title is the only one among cabinet heads that is not Secretary.

The office carries an inherent tension: the Attorney General is a political appointee and adviser to the President, and also the person responsible for enforcing the law impartially, including against the President's allies. Post-Watergate norms limited White House contact with the department on specific cases. Attorneys General have been accused, in administrations of both parties, of shielding the President or pursuing his opponents, and the balance between loyalty and independence remains the defining question of the job.