ATTORNEY GENERAL/TRUMP PEOPLE/JEFF SESSIONS: “More than a month after Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed dozens of the country’s top federal prosecutors to immediately resign, not one of the 93 US attorney positions has been filled.
‘We really need to work hard at that,’ Sessions said Tuesday after being asked about the vacancies, The Washington Post reported. He added that hiring US attorneys is a process that ‘does take some months and has traditionally.’
Yet Sessions has been traversing the country in recent weeks giving speeches about cracking down on crime, ushering in the ‘Trump era,’ and strengthening border and immigration enforcement. He will likely face difficulties implementing his agenda, however, without US attorneys in place, according to experts and former Obama administration officials.
US attorneys are the top federal prosecutors in local districts across the US. Although acting officials are in place until the vacancies are filled, they lack the power of a duly appointed US attorney.
‘An acting US attorney doesn’t speak with the same authority to a police chief or to a local prosecutor as a Senate-confirmed US attorney does,’ former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller told the Post.”
-Michelle Mark, “Not a single US attorney position has been filled since Sessions and Trump cleaned house last month,” Business Insider, April 19, 2017 12:00pm