Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice

This executive order establishes a specific line of succession to act as Attorney General (AG) within the Department of Justice (DOJ) if the AG, Deputy AG, Associate AG, and any other DOJ officials designated to act under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act are all unable to perform the duties. The order names four U.S. Attorneys—Southern District of New York (SDNY), District of Arizona, Northern District of Illinois, and District of Hawaii—as the first in line to assume the AG’s functions, continuing this arrangement until at least one of the listed officials can resume those duties. It adds eligibility and capacity restrictions, clarifies the President’s reserved discretion to designate someone else, revokes a prior executive order on the same topic (EO 13787, 2017), and states that the order does not create enforceable rights. The order is framed to operate in accordance with applicable law and existing budgetary constraints. In short, this order provides a narrowly defined, legally constrained path for an acting Attorney General to be appointed from among four named U.S. Attorneys if key DOJ leadership is unavailable, superseding the 2017 rule and clarifying that the arrangement does not alter overall executive or budgetary authority or create new legal rights outside the FVRA framework.