Civiletti served in the Carter administration and later became one of the nation’s most expensive private attorneys.
WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Attorney General Benjamin R. Civiletti, who investigated President Jimmy Carter’s brother while in the administration and who later became one of the nation’s most expensive private attorneys, has died. He was 87.
Civiletti interrupted a distinguished career as a Baltimore attorney in March 1977 to join the Justice Department as the assistant attorney general overseeing its criminal division. He was named deputy attorney general in May 1978, and Carter chose him as Attorney General Griffin B. Bell’s replacement in July 1979.
In investigating accusations leveled at White House aides Hamilton Jordan and Tim Kraft, Civiletti became the first attorney general to initiate the appointment of a special prosecutor under the 1978 Ethics in Government Act. He later said the act had too low a threshold and had wasted money as well as unfairly damaged the reputations of Jordan and Kraft, neither of whom was ever charged.
Civiletti oversaw two legal efforts aimed at responding to the Iranian hostage crisis. With Americans held in Tehran, he put into action Carter’s order to deport Iranian immigrants in the country illegally. He also argued for the release of the hostages before the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
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