- Benjamin Civiletti
Infobox US Cabinet official
name=Benjamin Civiletti
order=73rd
title=United States Attorney General
term_start=1979
term_end=1981
predecessor=Griffin Bell
successor=William French Smith
birth_date=birth date and age|1935|7|17
birth_place=Peekskill, New York ,United States
death_date=
death_place=
party= Democratic
spouse=
profession=
religion=Roman Catholic Benjamin Richard Civiletti (born
July 17 ,1935 , inPeekskill, New York ) served as theUnited States Attorney General during the last year and a half of the Carter administration, from 1979 to 1981. He is now a senior partner in theWashington, D.C. , law firm ofVenable LLP , specializing in "commercial litigation" and "internal investigations" and in 2005 became the first U.S. lawyer to charge $1000 an hour. He is also currently one of the three members of the Independent Review board. The IRB is the board that the Teamsters Union must answer to when allegations of corruption and mafia infiltration surface.Civiletti was educated at
Johns Hopkins University , where he received a bachelor's degree inpsychology , and at theUniversity of Maryland School of Law inBaltimore, Maryland , where he was awarded a JD in 1961.Civiletti was serving as the Deputy Attorney General, when his boss Griffin B. Bell resigned. He was elevated to the top job in the Justice Department on
July 19 ,1979 . Although Bell was not involved in the shake-up and resigned voluntarily, it occurred during a major Cabinet shakeup in theCarter administration . On the same day, Secretary of Health, Education, and WelfareJoseph A. Califano, Jr. and Treasury SecretaryW. Michael Blumenthal also resigned. Transportation SecretaryBrock Adams soon followed.Civiletti had come to Bell's attention when he was forming the Justice Department for the newly elected President by Carter's close confidant, Charles Kirbo, a law partner of Bell's who had once been involved in a case with Civiletti. Civletti served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division and was elevated to Deputy Attorney General after the resignation of Carter's initial Deputy Attorney General, former Pittsburgh Mayor
Peter Flaherty .Following the provisions of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Civiletti served on a secret tribunal that did not receive public participation or oversight, to determine whether or notMetalclad , a US corporation, could demand compensation for a hazardous waste landfill that the Mexican government had blocked from operating. Civiletti ultimately co-signed a [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB65/metdecb.pdf decision] to award damages to Metalclad in the amount of $16,685,000.00 USD. Funding for such compensation is achieved through tax dollars.As Attorney General Civiletti argued several important cases on behalf of the
US Government . Notably, he argued before theInternational Court of Justice on behalf of Americans being held captive in Iran during theIran Hostage Crisis . He also argued before theUS Supreme Court in support of the government's right to denaturalize Nazi war criminals.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.