United States Department of Justice

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The Department of Justice officially came into existence on July 1, 1870. In 1870, after the post-Civil War increase in the amount of litigation involving the United States necessitated the very expensive retention of a large number of private attorneys to handle the workload, a concerned Congress passed the Act to Establish the Department of Justice, ch. 150, 16 Stat. 162 (1870) setting it up as "an executive department of the government of the United States" with the Attorney General as its head. Pursuant to the 1870 Act, it was to handle the legal business of the United States. The Act gave the Department control over all criminal prosecutions and civil suits in which the United States had an interest. In addition, the Act gave the Attorney General and the Department control over federal law enforcement. To assist the Attorney General, the 1870 Act created the Office of the Solicitor General. The 1870 Act is the foundation upon which the Department of Justice still rests. However, the structure of the Department of Justice has changed over the years, with the addition of the Deputy Attorneys General and the formation of the Divisions. Unchanged is the steadily increasing workload of the Department. It has become the world's largest law office and the central agency for enforcement of federal laws.

Attorney General

See also: United States Attorney General

The Judiciary Act of 1789, (ch. 20, sec. 35, 1 Stat. 73, 92-93, 1789) created the Office of the Attorney General. Originally a one-person part-time position, the Attorney General was to be "learned in the law" with the duty "to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments, touching any matters that may concern their departments." The workload quickly became too much for one person, necessitating the hiring of several assistants for the Attorney General. With an increasing amount of work to be done, private attorneys were retained to work on cases.

When FBI Director Comey made inappropriate public announcements about the Clinton email server scandal, the credibility of the bureau was compromised. Several former attorneys general contacted by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, agreed (across party lines) that Comey should be fired for his poor handling of the affair. Trump gave Comey plenty of time to apologize, but he wouldn't budge. So after Congress quit stalling on the appointment of the new Attorney General - and his assistant (who enjoys bipartisan support) - the Justice department took only two weeks to come up with its recommendation to fire Comey based on a memo by Rosenstein. Trump, then, finally fired him.

  • Rosenstein said in his memo that he agreed with former Justice Department officials who had criticized Comey. ... All of those former officials were critical of Comey's actions in the investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails. Deputy attorney general's role puzzles some observers

Investigations

The Federal Bureau of Investigations is the investigatory arm of the Department of Justice, reporting to the assistant attorney general. For example, the FBI office in Cincinnati has a website and considers internet-related crimes to be a priority.[1]

Sources

http://www.usdoj.gov/02organizations/

References

  1. http://cincinnati.fbi.gov/white.htm