THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

When the World's Greatest Orange Money Launderer is elected to the Presidency with help from his little Russian buddy, the first thing he has to look out for is an investigation from the Department of Justice. Putting one of your pet's in charge helps, but there is too much scrutiny at the top. One can always obstruct any investigation but that carries another set of risks. Or one could just leave a shitload of positions unfilled, providing no leadership or direction to those who can hang your criminal ass.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly emphasized the return of the rule of law during his presidency, but the department dedicated to enforcing the law has remained without key leaders since he took office.

Under the George W. Bush administration, executive branch nominees below the attorney general would be “dismayed” at having to wait two or three months between being named by the president and starting their new job, recalled a former U.S. attorney. Now, that “seems lightning fast.”

Among Justice Department positions still requiring Senate confirmations, assistant attorneys general and U.S. attorneys represent some of the most glaring absences. Taken together, less than half those slots have Senate-confirmed leaders.

Among both groups – who help provide leadership and set law enforcement priorities in national security, fraud, civil rights, cybercrime and many other areas -- less than half of the positions have leaders confirmed in the Senate process

But is the president or the Senate to blame? It depends who you ask.

Some former DOJ officials point to a broken system in a Senate hijacked by partisan battles, while others say President Donald Trump should be pushing harder for certain nominees, such as the two named to be assistant attorneys general for the National Security Division and Criminal Division. The fact that those nominees have not been confirmed demonstrates either a lack of understanding on their importance on Trump’s part, or damage done by his administration’s attacks on DOJ, said Megan Stifel, a former attorney in DOJ’s National Security Division who helped draft the FISA Amendments Act.

“What other explanation is there? This isn’t three months into his presidency, this is a full year later,” said Stifel, who characterized the absence of an NSD leader as “almost mind-blowing.”

“These are positions vital to our national security, they are not supposed to be political,” she continued. “The lack of a (Senate-confirmed nominee) raises more questions as the days go on.”

Trump has nominated people for nine of the 11 assistant attorney general positions, but the Senate has confirmed just four, leaving seven slots filled by temporary leaders.

Those are acting assistant attorneys general, but former officials say it isn’t the same. One practical issue is that among DOJ officials, only three people have the authority to sign applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act: the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General for National Security. In recent comments to the Palm Beach Forum Club, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the absence of a Senate-confirmed national security division leader meant he and Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been trading off on signing the applications, which eats up about half-an-hour every day.

“It’s a daily exercise that has to get done,” said Stifel, who declined to characterize how many warrants are signed on an average day, citing security concerns.

(Any such applications related to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign was involved would presumably fall to Rosenstein alone, since Sessions is recused from that matter.)

Former Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher said the main difference between confirmed and acting leaders is the ability to set a strategy on crime and then oversee its implementation.

Call it marking time or treading water, the temporary or acting personnel are place holders who keep the machinery running at idle waiting for someone to set the policy. And given the horrid policies of President Shithead that may not be all that bad. But where it is bad, it is dangerous to the safety and well being of the United States.