Jefferson Powell Quotations

Despite all of the references to 'senior policy maker,' the principal deputy solicitor general isn't really that,

It is rather unlikely that memos signed by the deputy solicitor general will be crassly or even overtly political. What is said will be said, almost certainly, in terms of supposed 'professional' judgments about what would persuade the Supreme Court.

I am very reluctant to see internal stuff revealed except where there is some clear public reason for doing so, ... No one seriously thinks that Roberts is a raving lunatic, and as a pragmatic matter he is simply not going to be defeated. So neither on public nor partisan grounds do I think that my presumption of confidentiality is overcome.

It entirely depends on the administration. The Justice Department, as far back as I am aware, has always had a role, and I assume will always have one, of vetting nominees assembling information, doing that sort of work. Whether the attorney general and her subordinates are actively involved in choices about judicial appointments is going to depend on who the attorney general is and what his or her relationship to the president is,

The department has a lively and strong sense of tradition and even if one was disposed to ignore that, it would be awfully hard to do that in the teeth of all these very smart civil servants who say 'No, this is not what we do, or this is the position the department has always taken,'

The current attorney general is known for having had a focus on children and issues concerning children. That kind of focus and devotion of attention and energy is something that is obviously and legitimately in the attorney general's prerogative. But no, he or she must enforce the laws that Congress chooses to enact,