United States Attorney General

• 1. Introduction

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  The United States attorney general earns $250,600 a year, as of January 2025, the salary for a Level I role in the federal Executive Schedule. This officeholder runs the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government. The president relies on this person as the principal legal advisor on all legal matters. The role also carries a statutory seat on the Cabinet of the United States and a seat on the National Security Council. Seventh in the presidential line of succession, the attorney general sits closer to the presidency than most Americans realize. Yet this Cabinet post carries a title unlike any other in the president's inner circle.

  How did an office once limited to arguing the government's court cases grow into oversight of major federal law enforcement work? What happens to the job in the hours after a new president takes the oath? And who were the people who reshaped what the office could be?

• 2. Attorney, Then General

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  In the phrase attorney general, the word attorney is a noun and general is a postpositive adjective. It describes the kind of attorney, not a military rank. Senior government officials sometimes call the officeholder General, or General followed by a last name, but standard American English usage treats this as incorrect. The same logic shapes the plural. The correct form is attorneys general, not attorney generals, since general modifies attorney rather than standing as its own title.

  Every other Cabinet department head carries the title Secretary, from the secretary of state to the secretary of defense. The Department of Justice answers to an attorney general instead.

  That naming quirk is only one thread in a story that begins with Congress in the nation's earliest years.

• 3. Building The Office

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  Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1789, and among its provisions was the creation of the Office of the Attorney General. The law charged this new officer, in its own words, "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." Some of those original duties later moved to two other offices, the solicitor general and the White House counsel.

  The Department of Justice itself did not exist until 1870, when Congress established it to support the attorneys general in their work. In 1841, Congress authorized the first volume of The Official Opinions of the Attorneys General of the United States. It printed the legal justifications behind the president's official actions.

  Four Cabinet officials are regarded as the most important because of the size and reach of their departments. They are the secretary of state, the secretary of the treasury, the secretary of defense, and the attorney general.

  None of that authority arrives automatically. Each nominee must first clear the Senate.

• 4. Confirmed By The Senate

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  Under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution, the president nominates the attorney general. The nominee then faces a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Only a majority vote of the full Senate can put the nominee in office.

  Once confirmed, the attorney general is supported by the Office of the Attorney General, a team of executive staff and several deputy attorneys general.

  That confirmed authority reaches well beyond the walls of the Justice Department's own headquarters.

• 5. A Wide Portfolio

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  The Federal Bureau of Investigation answers to the attorney general, alongside the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The portfolio also reaches the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. attorneys, and the United States Marshals Service.

  The office also enforces federal law directly. It provides both formal and informal legal advice to the president, the Cabinet, and the heads of executive departments and agencies. The attorney general represents the federal government in legal matters and supervises how the Department of Justice operates day to day.

  On judicial appointments, the attorney general advises the president on candidates for federal judgeships. The same advice covers candidates for Department of Justice posts such as U.S. Attorneys and U.S. Marshals.

  Although the attorney general may argue cases before the Supreme Court, the solicitor general typically handles that job instead. The attorney general also performs or supervises whatever other duties statute or executive order assigns.

  None of this authority is permanent. It changes hands, often within hours, whenever a new president takes the oath.

• 6. Noon On Inauguration Day

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  By custom, the attorney general and the other Cabinet secretaries submit resignations effective at noon on Inauguration Day, the 20th of January. That is the moment a new president takes office. The deputy attorney general is also expected to resign. That person is commonly asked to remain and serve as acting attorney general until the Senate confirms a successor.

  When President Donald Trump was inaugurated at noon on the 20th of January 2017, Attorney General Loretta Lynch left her post. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, who had also tendered her resignation, was asked to stay on as acting attorney general. She served in that role until the Senate confirmed Jeff Sessions, whom then president-elect Donald Trump had nominated for the office in November 2016.

  Sessions' confirmation filled the office. Federal law also spells out exactly who would act as attorney general if the position itself ever sat empty.

• 7. Next In Line

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  Federal law fixes the first two names in that chain of succession. The attorney general is then free to designate other senior Justice Department officers as the next in line.

  The most recent executive order on the subject is Executive Order 14136, titled "Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice." President Joe Biden signed it on the 3rd of January 2025. It was published in the Federal Register on the 13th of January 2025. President Donald Trump revoked it on the 20th of January 2025, and no replacement order has taken its place since.

  Under that most recent order, the United States deputy attorney general stood first in line, followed by the United States associate attorney general. Other officers the attorney general could designate, in no particular order, included the solicitor general and several assistant attorneys general. Those assistant attorneys general led divisions covering antitrust, civil matters, civil rights, criminal law, and national security.

  The list also reached specific prosecutors. It named the U.S. Attorneys for the Southern District of New York and the District of Arizona. It also named the Northern District of Illinois and the District of Hawaii.

  Behind every rule about who comes next stands a list of specific people who actually held the office. Several of them broke barriers no attorney general had broken before.

• 8. Firsts

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  Charles Joseph Bonaparte became the first Italian American man to serve as attorney general in 1906. Edward H. Levi became the first Jewish American man to hold the office in 1975. Janet Reno became the first woman to serve as attorney general in 1993. Alberto Gonzales became the first Hispanic American man to hold the post in 2005. Eric Holder became the first African American man to serve as attorney general in 2009. Loretta Lynch became the first African American woman to hold the office in 2015.

  Each of these firsts arrived decades apart, from Bonaparte's appointment in 1906 to Lynch's confirmation more than a century later. That gap leaves open who might be named to break the next barrier.