A Quote by Benjamin Wittes
There is no doubt in my mind that Article II limits to a considerable degree the application of the obstruction statutes to the president when he is acting in his capacity as chief law-enforcement officer of the country.
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How exactly the obstruction-of-justice statutes interact with the president's broad powers to supervise the executive branch under Article II of the Constitution is a genuinely difficult question.
Obstruction, basically, is whether you corruptly influence, obstruct or impede the administration of justice. You tell a chief law enforcement officer get, you know, back off my friend - or I hope you back off my friend and then when he doesn't, you fire him, clearly, that isn't - that is - fits the behavior of obstruction. The question of whether or not you can prosecute the president is open.
Although the attorney general is a part of the president's team, you're really separate and apart. You have a special responsibility as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. There has to be a distance that you keep - between this department and the White House.
The integrity of our government, our Republic, fundamentally relies on the principle that no person, not even the president or the nation's chief law enforcement officer, is above our laws.
As New York's chief law enforcement officer, I have taken a hard line against those in state government who abuse the law they have sworn to uphold.
As the state's chief law enforcement officer, it's my job to see that perpetrators of fraud are brought to justice.
As attorney general of Missouri, I am my state's chief law enforcement officer. I swore an oath to uphold the rule of law, and that means fighting violence and oppression wherever it exists, especially violence against the poor and vulnerable.
Charged with faithfully executing the laws, the president is, in effect, the nation's highest law enforcement officer.
I understood law enforcement in such a way that I was able to get a law enforcement officer, a veteran, to actually come clean and admit fault, even though he was facing prison time.
As president, I will ramp up enforcement of trade rules by appointing a new chief trade prosecutor and tripling the number of enforcement officers. We will work with both parties to pass the biggest investment new good paying jobs since World War II.
The upshot of the Nixon tapes case was that any president is going to have an extremely hard time resisting a request from a law enforcement officer.
There are those who offer themselves as leaders who even play politics with a nomination of our nations chief law enforcement officer, finally, Loretta Lynch will be able to assume the position she has trained her lifetime for.
My father was in law enforcement growing up. He was a probation officer. And I've always understood the point of view of the peace officer, you know, because of my dad.
We need to statutize what is permissible and what is not permissible. If a law enforcement agent uses a clearly unapproved technique like the knee that was on the neck of George Floyd for over eight minutes, no law enforcement agent thinks that that's right and that officer should be held accountable.
The idea that the president doesn't interfere in law-enforcement investigative matters is one of our deep normative expectations of the modern presidency. But it is not a matter of law. Legally, if the president of the United States wants to direct the specific conduct of investigations, that is his constitutional prerogative.
Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists. And the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin. And that's despicable.
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