Department of Justice

The Attorney General is the chief law-enforcement officer in the United States. He represents the United States in legal mat­ters generally, and gives advice and opinion when requested by the President or by executive-departments heads.

While the President has a special counsel,.the White House also calls on the Attorney General for legal advice, particularly on bills and resolutions passed in Congress and sent.to the chief executive for his signature. The President also, calls on the Attorney General for legal opinions concerning the exercising of special emergency powers. This was particularly true during World War II and in the two years that followed.

The Attorney General has a wide discretion about what laws to enforce and about what actions he will regard as violations of the law. His decision will not be made without reference to the policies of the President; and those in turn are strongly influenced by politics.

With all the political forces that influence the interpretation of the Constitution and the laws, from the choices of the Attorney General to the personalities of the Supreme Court justices, the law is evidently not the simple block of enduring granite that the layman might wish he could have under his feet. The law, in fact, is less certain today than it was thought to be in 1787.

The Solicitor General is the second ranking officer of the Department of Justice assuming the duties of Attorney General in his absence. He represents the Government in cases before the Supreme Court, and at the request of the Attorney General, in cases affecting the United States in state courts or elsewhere. The main unit of the Justice Department is the Federal Bu­reau of Investigation (FBI). The Bureau is in effect an intelli­gence agency for the Justice Department, gathering information on criminal matters which come within the jurisdiction of the Department. Functions of the FBI include the investigation of espionage, sabotage, and matters pertaining to the internal se­curity of the United States as well as investigations of alleged vio­lations of approximately 100 Federal statutes. The FBI deals with kidnappers, bank robbers, and many other violators of Federal law, and is active in counterespionage. It does the field work of investigating the loyalty of Government employees. Other secret services, located in the Treasury, pursue counterfeiters, smugglers, narcotics traders, income-tax dodgers. All such persons when caught are prosecuted in Federal courts by the Department of Justice or the local United States attorneys under its supervision. In 2007 the top categories of lead criminal charges resulting from FBI investigations were:

1.Bank robbery and incidental crimes (107 charges)

2.Drugs (104 charges)

3.Materials involving sexual exploitation of minors (51 charges)

4.Mail fraud – frauds and swindles (51 charges)

5.Bank frau (31 charges)

6.Prohibition of illegal gambling businesses (22 charges)

7.Fraud by wire, radio, television (20 charges)