Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice
Signed January 13, 2017·Barack Obama·82 FR 7619
Source
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Plain-language summary
Sets an order of succession for the office of Attorney General under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, to apply if the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, Associate Attorney General, and any officers the Attorney General has designated under 28 U.S.C. 508 are unable to serve. The acting Attorney General would be, in order, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, then for the Northern District of Illinois, then for the Central District of California. It specifies that anyone already serving in one of these roles in an acting capacity cannot become acting Attorney General under this order, that successors must otherwise be eligible under the Vacancies Reform Act, and that the President retains discretion to depart from this order. It revokes Executive Order 13557 of November 4, 2010, and states it creates no enforceable legal rights.
Not written or reviewed by a person. Read the full order below for anything you intend to rely on.
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Legal standing
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Claimed authority
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, 5 U.S.C. 3345 et seq., it is hereby ordered
Quoted from the order as written. Many orders cite nothing more specific than “the Constitution and the laws”; this reproduces what the order claims, not an assessment of whether it holds.
Disposition
Revokes: EO 13557, November 4, 2010 Revoked by: EO 13775, February 9, 2017
Compiled after the fact by the National Archives, so recent orders often have none yet. An empty disposition means no record, not no activity.
The order, in full
Executive Order 13762 of January 13, 2017
Providing an Order of Succession Within the
Department of Justice
By the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and the laws of the United States of
America, including the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of
1998, 5 U.S.C. 3345 et seq., it is hereby ordered that:
Section 1. Order of Succession. Subject to the
provisions of section 2 of this order, the following
officers, in the order listed, shall act as and perform
the functions and duties of the office of Attorney
General, during any period in which the Attorney
General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Associate
Attorney General, and any officers designated by the
Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 508 to act as
Attorney General have died, resigned, or otherwise
become unable to perform the functions and duties of
the office of Attorney General, until such time as at
least one of the officers mentioned above is able to
perform the functions and duties of that office:
(a) United States Attorney for the District of
Columbia;
(b) United States Attorney for the Northern
District of Illinois; and
(c) United States Attorney for the Central District
of California.
Sec. 2. Exceptions. (a) No individual who is serving in
an office listed in section 1 of this order in an
acting capacity, by virtue of so serving, shall act as
Attorney General pursuant to this order.
(b) No individual listed in section 1 shall act as
Attorney General unless that individual is otherwise
eligible to so serve under the Federal Vacancies Reform
Act of 1998.
(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of this order,
the President retains discretion, to the extent
permitted by law, to depart from this order in
designating an acting Attorney General.
Sec. 3. Executive Order 13557 of November 4, 2010, is
revoked.
Sec. 4. This order is not intended to, and does not,
create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural,
enforceable at law or in equity, by any party against
the United States, its departments, agencies, or
entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any
other person.
(Presidential Sig.)
THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 13, 2017.Reproduced from the Federal Register plain-text record, signed January 13, 2017. Typesetting artifacts are removed; no wording is changed.