The first attorney general, Edmund Randolph, was President George Washington’s confidant and close political ally. Between then and now, presidents have, from time to time, appointed friends and supporters to be attorneys general. They even chose campaign managers or their party’s national chairperson to be attorney general of the United States.

The former Florida attorney general is expected to oversee a radical reshaping of the Justice Department that has already been rattled by the firings of career employees seen as disloyal to the Republican President.