Overview
Slate quoted Michael Vatis in a May 4 article titled “The Man Who Could Stop Jeff Sessions.” The article discusses how new Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions each view the Justice Department’s role in the federal government. Where the former seems to buy into an idealized vision of the agency as a nonpartisan instrument of pure law enforcement, the articles states that Mr. Sessions has already demonstrated a gleeful willingness to align himself and his agency with the Trump administration.
Mr. Vatis, who served in the office of the deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1998, says: “There is an inherent tension in the role of attorney general. Just like every other cabinet member, he is a political appointee who is supposed to be working on the president’s agenda, but at the same time, it’s important for him to maintain a sense of independence from the White House, because inevitably, the Justice Department and the people who work under the AG are going to have to conduct investigations … that have some political element to them.”
The full article can be read at Slate.