department under jeff sessions and the justice department under president obama than there has been between previous administrations? i m looking from outside but sure seems that way to me. there have been statements that this attorney general has made, attorney general sessions has made. the interactions he had with the white house that are inconsistent with the way in which i conducted myself as attorney general and frankly the way in which my plredecessors, many of my predecessors conducted themselves. certainly the berating that he reportedly took by the president is totally inconsistent with my experience and again, i think, inconsistent with all the previous attorneys general that i m aware of. is that just a matter of personality and washington personal drama or do you think that there is national consequence of risk associated with that strange thing that we saw unfold with the president berating his attorney general? i think that actually worries
kind of emotional reaction out of particularly paranoid slice of the public. and it s therefore, just a hard place to be first, and break any sort of barrier. yeah, the attorney general sits at the conjunction of law and policy, and the justice department is in so many parts of so many people s lives, from national security things to civil rights, voting, that you are a presence in a way that other cabinet members are not. that s at least one of the reasons why, perhaps, i could engender those kinds of negative feelings. those people saw me as representative of the obama administration. and for some, for some. not for all, but for some, i think there were probably some racial issues. the attorney general of the united states is often a lightning rod for criticism of the president in the united states. eric holder said he understood that to be just part of the gig. now we have that gig inverted
me because i think it betrays a lack of understanding on the part of the president about what the role of the attorney general has to be. you can t go at the a.g. in that way. if you truly understand the independent role that he should play within the administration. there are things an attorney general is going to do that the president isn t going to agree with and the president is going to suck it up and say that the a.g. has the responsibility to enforce the laws, he s got national security responsibilities, and he s an independent actor in the way that other cabinet officials are not. unless the president doesn t treat him that way. unless the president doesn t treat him that way. history has shown us that when that wall is too low, that s when justice departments get in trouble. during the nixon years, during the bush years, when you have white house contacts with the justice department in channels that are not approved. what s the directcorrector ft
senator to endorse donald trump for president. and then once trump was president, sessions became the nation s attorney general. now jeff sessions days may conceivably be numbered even there as every day presents a new opportunity for the president to pick a fight with him. former attorney general eric holder explains why that dynamic might actually be something dangerous for the country. in terms of the justice department as a national security agency, which in many ways, it is, i ve always wondered if it fits the line of national security policy making, in the sense that it s less partisan than other types of domestic policy, what i mean by that is in my job i m often looking back into sometime in the last couple of generations, looking for historical context for things that are happening now, and if public officials who i m talking about are national
figures, i often have to look up what their partisan affiliation s because it s just often not that important. and there s a certain continuity and inertia in national security that transcends partisan wins. is that also true at justice? yes. and justice department officials have gotten in trouble, attorneys general have gotten in trouble when they have forgotten that the justice department really is different from other cabinet agencies. i remember senator lahey said during confirmation, you re not the secretary of justice. you re the attorney general of the united states and there has to be a wall between the justice department and the white house even though you re a part of the administration. put kind of an interesting thing between me and a president who i was a friend with, certain things we couldn t discuss and certain things we didn t discuss but i think that s an appropriate way for an attorney general to think of himself or herself and it s an appropriate way for the justi