The U.S. Attorney General is forever caught between competing
demands: on one side, his political duties as cabinet appointee and
adviser to the president; on the other, his quasi-judicial
responsibilities as chief law officer of the nation. In theory the
two sets of responsibilities coexist peacefully. In reality they
often clash.
"In Conflicting Loyalties," political scientist Nancy Baker
provides the first comprehensive analysis of the history and
structure of the office of the U.S. Attorney General, an office
that legal scholars have described as "schizophrenic." Her study
documents how they have differed in their responses, seeing
themselves either as advocates of the president or as neutral
expounders of the law. Combining historical analysis with legal and
political theory, Baker shows how this implicit conflict has
evolved from the earliest days of the Republic, when the attorney
general was primarily an adviser, to the present day, when he
administers the huge bureaucracy of the Department of Justice.
Using both archival materials and personal interviews, Baker
analyzes how the seventy-five men who have held the post of
attorney general have managed the conflict of loyalties. In
particular, she focuses on Robert Kennedy, Edwin Meese, Elliot
Richardson, Griffin Bell, Robert Jackson, Edward Levi, A. Mitchell
Palmer, and Roger Taney. She also examines how the office has been
affected by scandals in various administrations, including the Red
scare of 1919-20, Teapot Dome, Watergate, and Iran-Contra. The book
concludes with an exploration of arguments for reforming the
office.
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