"I do believe it has a corrosive effect on public confidence and the constitutional republic of which we are sworn to uphold."
"The Solicitor General should not advocate to alter the meaning of words to advance an agenda."
"agencies oftentimes see themselves as independent fiefdoms."
"As Attorney General, you have to follow the law, you have to be consistent, and you have to be honorable in your decisionmaking."
"A guidance document cannot amount to an amendment of a law. Bureaucrats do not have... to rewrite the law."
"The first and foremost goal, I think, of law enforcement would be to identify persons who are dangerous, who have a tendency or have been proven to be lawbreakers and been convicted."
"The Solicitor General... has a duty, the Department of Justice does, to defend the laws passed by this body, by Congress."
"I remember almost all the cases had an interstate commerce nexus. It was not the theft of an automobile that you prosecuted."
"We could work out a lot more of these issues rather than having the heavy hand of the Federal litigation system come to play into forcing compliance by States."
"I do not favor personally this kind of work. I think it should be more productive work."
"Well, it can fail to enforce it by setting prosecutorial policies with regard to declining to prosecute whole chunks of cases and, in effect, eliminate a statute."