U.S. Attorneys dot not "Serve" the President

[ThoughtCriminal]

They are supposed to serve US.

[Sherman A1]

1. Well

The President is supposed to do that as well, however the Esteemed Mr. Bush seems to have missed that memo.

[MiniMe]

2. Absolutely correct, but they serve at the pleasure of the President

Which means that the President nominates them, and he can fire them.

[StatGirl]

3. That's the true evil of the "Unitary Executive" theory

It makes everyone in the executive branch accountable to him and not to US. That's why * and ** are so eager to promote it.

[Raven]

4. The USAs serve at the pleasure of the President

in other words, they are appointed and they don't have job security. They can be fired at will. There is nothing inherantly wrong with this. Everyone in government who is appointed rather than elected serves at the pleasure of the President. Where the trouble comes is when the President fires people in an effort to obstruct justice ( pursuit of Repub wrongdoers) or pervert justice (go after Dems just to go after Dems). Probably the only USA cases that have legs are the ones where there is obstruction of justice i.e. was an ongoing investigation of a repub and the USA was whipped out of there and the investigation went south. I think there may be at least two or three of those and those are the cases that should get the attention. Again, the President gets to appoint a shitload of people and he can can them whenever he feels like it as long as a crime is not committed or an entire department of the government (DoJ) is not destroyed in the process. But then, Bush is a master at destroying things.

[yurbud]

5. who is dot? their dog?

[EvolveOrConvolve]

6. Technically, they don't serve 'us' either

They act as interpreters of the law. They are not beholden to anything other than the US Constitution. They "serve" at the pleasure of the president, and he can fire them at will.

It's a breach of etiquette, however, to fire US Attorneys for political reasons. The USA's should be buffered from politics as much as possible to allow them a degree of neutrality. Unfortunately, Rove/Gonzalez/Bushco didn't see it that way.

[MissMarple]

7. Well, this has never been about "rules" or "law" to them.It's about whatever they can get away with.

And that's the the troof.