Top 1200 Attorney General Quotes & Sayings

The Attorney General is not above the law.

It is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General Beau Biden, would make a great United States senator - just as I believe he has been a great attorney general. But Beau has made it clear from the moment he entered public life, that any office he sought, he would earn on his own.

The nature of the job of attorney general has changed - irrevocably. And we should never again have an attorney general, of either party, capable of expressing surprise at the role that national security issues now play in the life of the Justice Department or in the role of its chief.

We are engaged in immediate conversations with the White House on deliberations over a successor whom we hope will continue in the general direction of Attorney General Holder.

I guess the next Attorney General is going to have to figure that out. I don't know if that will be me or not, but the next Attorney General would have to figure that out [ if Hillary Clinton has violated the law].

I believe the attorney general or the deputy attorney general has an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution and to give their independent legal advice to the President.

The attorney general could push and the president Donald Trump could push governors and state attorney generals to move forward with hate crimes laws all over America to protect the Jewish community and other marginalized groups.

On a personal level, I've seen a lot in my time as attorney general, but few things have affected me as greatly as my visit to Ferguson. I had the chance to meet with the family of Michael Brown. I spoke to them not just as attorney general but as a father of a teenage son myself.

[Possible Attorney General] that's a discussion I'd like to have with [Donald Trump].

America is very fortunate to have Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.

I've given everything I've got as attorney general.

I couldn't do that as attorney general. Why? Because they are my clients. You can't say they're not doing what they ought to be doing when you are the attorney general.

The attorney general should be enforcing the law, not policy.

As attorney general, I've launched a specialized unit to protect voting rights.

Salazar's record is one of weakness; he hasn't been a good attorney general.

I was an assistant U.S. attorney. I was the associate attorney general of the United States, third-ranking official under Ronald Reagan.

I have a record as attorney general that is separate from my personal beliefs.

The attorney general is the only one who can authorize what's called an emergency FISA.

Kentuckians can see how I've lived my values by looking at my priorities as attorney general.

Americans deserve an attorney general that will be honest with them, they deserve an attorney general who will uphold the basic standards of political independence and accountability.

Since my election as Oklahoma attorney general in 2010, I have been a proud member of a group of federalism-minded state attorneys general who have methodically, indeed relentlessly, worked to restore the proper balance of power between the federal government and the states.

I recognized when I ran for the office of attorney general that there would be... challenges and that there are things that you cannot predict.

Jeff Sessions, the person who`s likely to become our next attorney general, is striking a very different tone from our current attorney general, Loretta Lynch, who announced a consent decree with the city of Baltimore.

Remember the attorney general is not a member of the president's staff. He's the attorney general of the United States. He's there to represent all of us, and it means all the laws have to be enforced fairly. And you can't bring your individual prejudices in there.

Attorney General John Ashcroft bid farewell to the Justice Department with a goodbye address. The voluntary resignation came as a bit of a disappointment to the attorney general, who had hoped to be raptured out of office.

I know that Duke made a number of demands, including that the attorney general drop its investigation. We have no intention of asking the attorney general to do that.

All I want to do is be the best attorney general that I can be.

The people around the nation, but specifically in Arizona where operation Fast and Furious was carried out, deserve more from their president and their attorney general. I will not rest until full answers are given about this project, justice is served for those responsible, and Attorney General Holder takes responsibility for his role.

There are a whole variety of reasons I want to be attorney general, a whole variety of things that I do as attorney general that go beyond national security.

I don't want somebody as attorney general who thinks he has to rubberstamp whatever the president says.

The resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder is met with both pride and disappointment by the Civil Rights community. We are proud that he has been the best Attorney General on Civil Rights in U.S. history and disappointed because he leaves at a critical time when we need his continued diligence most.

It is no secret that I believe my son, Attorney General Beau Biden would make a great United States Senator - just as I believe he has been a great Attorney General. But Beau has made it clear from the moment he entered public life, that any office he sought, he would earn on his own.

Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?

Attorney General John Ashcroft has earned himself a remarkable distinction as the Torquemada of American law. Tomás de Torquemada...was largely responsible for...[the] torture and the burning of heretics — Muslims in particular. Now, of course, I am not accusing the Attorney General of pulling out anyone's fingernails or burning people at the stake (at least I don't know of any such cases). But one does get the sense these days that the old Spaniard's spirit is comfortably at home in Ashcroft's Department of Justice.

I ran for attorney general to be attorney general.

I was attorney general; my name is Meese. I say, go to college. Don't carry a piece.

I'm very happy being attorney general.

When the law says you're entitled to an attorney, it doesn't mean you're entitled to an attorney who sleeps or an attorney who doesn't do his job.

I will not vote in favor of Senator Sessions' nomination for attorney general.

As attorney general, I've led a victim-centered office.

People used to ask me: 'Well, was it the power that attracted you to Bill Clinton?' And I said, well, how much power do you think the attorney general of Arkansas has? Of course not. It wasn't that for me. I just a thought he was wonderful in general.

The attorney general should be a watchdog for the rule of law, not a lapdog for the president - simple as that.

People don't turn away from an attorney sitting in a wheelchair. If the guy has got the reputation for being the best attorney around, that's who you go with. But in show business, for some reason they're still reluctant to say an attorney or a physician or an interior decorator can be in a chair, or on crutches, or blind or any of the other things.

Having served as both attorney general and deputy attorney general in the Justice Department, I had responsibility for supervising the FBI, working on virtually a daily basis with its senior leadership.

I can guarantee that not because I give Attorney General [Loretta] Lynch a directive. That is institutionally how we have always operated. I do not talk to the attorney general about pending investigations [On Hillary Clinton].

The power granted the Attorney General to intervene in all equal-protection-of-the-law cases is extremely broad and dangerous. Choices made by the Attorney General could follow a political and selected pattern.

[James Comey] should have gone to the Public Integrity section and said 'What do you folks think.' It's a little bit of an odd situation because he's a former deputy attorney general as well as head of the FBI so he may have trouble keeping on only the investigator hat forgetting that he's a former deputy attorney general. So it's not a good thing, it's a distraction so I think we should just ignore it because there's nothing there so get on with the business of last week of the election.

I will be glad to discuss this proposition with my attorney, and that after I talk with one, we could either discuss it with him or discuss it with my attorney, if the attorney thinks it is a wise thing to do, but at the present time I have nothing more to say to you.

The attorney general doesn't favor one method or the other, he favors the death penalty.

In some states, the attorney general is appointed, but in New York state it's an independently elected position. The New York attorney general has an obligation to the people first, to her conscience and to the rule of law, not to the governor, and not to the legislature.

As attorney general, I have a duty to defend the laws and constitution of the State of Missouri.

The attorney general will not cast aspersions on my asparagus.

As a former District Attorney and Attorney General, I know the urgency of providing safe homes, schools and neighborhoods for all. This remarkable tour-de-force is a powerful study of one promising solution: a data-rich, eminently readable demonstration of why we should treat gun violence as an American epidemic.

The Attorney General of the United States is, of course, not the president's lawyer. The AG is supposed to be the attorney for the United States, protecting the rule of law.

When I was attorney general, we had the strongest public integrity unit in the country.

What disturbed me most, frankly, about the Rod Rosenstein memo, is the fact it was addressed to the attorney general. The attorney general was supposed to have recused himself from anything involving Russia. And here he is recommending the firing of the top cop doing the Russia investigation, in clear violation of what he had, the attorney general, had committed to doing.

The Office of Attorney General should be independent and the Office of Attorney General should have the power to investigate without the approval of the governor of the state of New York. It's absolutely critically important.

We need an attorney general for the people, not a presidential protector and puppet of the administration.

If Barr wants to keep defending Trump, he should take a page from one of his predecessors, Henry Stanbery, who stepped down as attorney general to serve as President Andrew Johnson's impeachment counsel. Stanbery, notably, tried to come back as attorney general after the impeachment proceedings concluded. The Senate did not confirm him.

Any attorney general who is not an activist is not doing his or her job.