Rational Choice at the Office of Legal Counsel

Discussions of the Attorney General's advisory function, indeed most discussions of the Attorney General's role in general, are carried out in the intellectual shadows cast by two contrasting images. At one extreme, we imagine someone like the man Edward Bates conjured when he said that "the office I hold is not properly political, but strictly legal; and it is my duty, above all other ministers of state, to uphold the law and to resist all encroachment, from whatever quarter, of mere will and power.'' At the other extreme, we think of someone like John Mitchell, who went to prison as a result of efforts that began when he was Attorney General to advance the political interests of his President. Most Attorneys General are thought to fall between these poles, faithful in some considerable measure to the ideal articulated by Bates, but pulled with greater or less reluctance to shape their view of the law to suit the policy preferences or political demands of the administration in which they served.