Shepard Fairey faces prison over Obama "Hope" poster

[Rath]

Kasz216 said:

Rath said:
Why would the Justice department give him a heads up? This guy clearly broke the law and it is not at all up to the president to decide whether he gets prosecuted or not...

Actually it is.

The attorney general is a member of the President's cabinent just like the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense... etc.

The president directs the attorney general what laws to enforce or not via memos and the attorney general works at the leisure of the president.  Meaning he's removable at any time for any reason.

For example here... he specifically tells the justice department to NOT defend a law.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/02/president-obama-instructs-justice-department-to-stop-defending-defense-of-marriage-act-calls-clinton/

 

That is not the same as telling the attorney general not to prosecute a person because they did something helpful to Obama. Doing that would be in itself illegal and I believe impeachable.