leave." Appointment of U.S. Attorneys and the 2005 Patriot Act reauthorization The President of the United States has the authority to appoint U.S. Attorneys, with the consent of the United States Senate, and the President may remove U.S. Attorneys from office. In the event of a vacancy, the United States Attorney General is authorized to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney. Before March 9, 2006, such interim appointments expired after 120 days, if a Presidential appointment had not been approved by the Senate. Vacancies that persisted beyond 120 days were filled through interim appointments made by the Federal District Court for the district of the vacant office. The USA PATRIOT Act Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, signed into law March 9, 2006, amended the law for the interim appointment of U.S. Attorneys by deleting two provisions: (a) the 120-day maximum term for the Attorney General's interim appointees, and (b) the subsequent interim appointment authority of Federal District Courts. With the revision, an interim appointee can potentially serve indefinitely (though still removable by the President), if the President declines to nominate a U.S. Attorney for a vacancy, or the Senate either fails to act on a Presidential nomination, or rejects a nominee that is different than the interim appointee. On June 14, 2007, President Bush signed a bill into law that re-instated the 120-day term limit on interim attorneys appointed by the Attorney General. See also List of federal political scandals in the United States Don Siegelman Cyril Wecht Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) Rachel Paulose Notes References and external links Resignation letters and emails, and other related documents hosted by WSJThe Washington Post in-depth coverage site on firings: Inside the U.S. Attorneys Emails: Major Players and Themes The Wall Street Journal (review of the most significant of the emails). Allegra Hartley Timeline: How the U.S. Attorneys Were Fired U.S. News & World Report April 18, 2007. Articles and books Eisenstein, James. Counsel for the United States: U.S. Attorneys in the Political and Legal Systems. Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1978. Iglesias, David with Davin Seay. In Justice: Inside the Scandal That Rocked the Bush Administration. Hoboken, New Jersey. Wiley, 2008. . Article on the hearings. McKay, John. Train Wreck at the Justice Department: An Eyewitness Account. Seattle University Law Review, Vol. 31, p. 265, 2008 Wire article on Congressional supoenas issued to attorneys. Whitford, Andrew B. "Bureaucratic