Robert H. Jackson Quotes
It was my idea to keep the [Justice] Department purely a law office and not have it engage in the administration of legislation. This was based on my view that the best quality in a lawyer’s advice is disinterestedness.
This Attorney General didn’t even want the FBI or the Immigration & Naturalization Service in his department as size and power might compromise the objectivity of the advice he gave the President. See {45926}
Robert Houghwout Jackson, 1892-1954, Chief Prosecutor, Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, U. S. Attorney General (Democrat), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Memoir: That Man, 1954
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Senate was investigating a scandal where the George W. Bush White House had induced the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, to fire 8 of their own political U. S. Attorney appointments because they had or were investigating/prosecuting Republican politicians for corruption or not prosecuting Democrats vigorously enough. Gonzalez took the responsibility for the firings but did “not remember” why each had been fired nor was there any record in the Justice Department indicating any shortcoming with their jobs. The White House political operatives refused to testify under oath citing “Executive Privilege.”
She did not think that the U. S. Attorneys, most of whom were Republicans, were loyal enough to President George W. Bush or ideological enough. The Attorney General refused to fire them all, but he did fire eight for political reasons including one to be replaced by a friend of White House Aide Karl Rove. Miers was so unqualified for the Supreme Court that the Senate members of her own party forced her to withdraw.
Explaining why his Justice Department was arguing in court that abortion protestors who interfere with abortion clinics could be criminally prosecuted. As a rabid abortion opponent, anti-choice people expected him to side with the violent protesters.
See Abraham Lincoln for a similar view.
The advice turned out to be essentially correct.
of the September 11 Commission
The Republican leadership wanted him to hasten to file a political corruption case before election day so that a Republican Congresswoman, in a tight fight, could criticize her opponent, the state attorney general, for being soft on corruption. Inglesias would not disclose the confidential information regarding his investigation to his Republican colleagues. Shortly thereafter he was fired and there was no reason given nor was there any record of inadequate performance. When the Congress investigated the case, the Republican Attorney General could not give a reason that he fired Inglesias.
This was an insult to the George W. Bush administration which had stretched the Constitution more so than any previous administration, had asserted Presidential powers that had never been asserted before and had had several of its more controversial policies and practices overturned by the Supreme Court.
He was at the time referring to Greece where the King’s ministers controlled the judges of the nation. He stressed the importance of judicial independence if justice is to be obtained.
Robert Houghwout Jackson was an American attorney and judge who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He had previously served as United States Solicitor General and United States Attorney General, and is the only person to have held all three of those offices. Jackson was also notable for his work as Chief United States Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals following World War II.
