Tonight's third and final presidential debate, focused on foreign policy, could shed more light on the differences between the candidates on Department of Justice priorities as well as several other legal issues.
Mitt Romney's campaign has not so far given an overarching vision regarding what DOJ in his administration might look like, but several areas Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has emphasized in the past four years relate to activity abroad such as the large enforcement push on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
The main topics of the debate tonight will focus on the Middle East, specifically the terrorist attack last month in Libya in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed, as well as the White House response.
Holder made his first comments about that attack from the Arab Forum on Asset Recovery in Qatar, as he was trumpeting FCPA actions that resulted in more than 30 individual convictions and 40 corporate resolutions, totaling more than $2.1 billion in penalties over the last three years alone.
With the FCPA, the business community and their lawyers are still waiting for the DOJ to issue a new guidance that the Obama administration promised would be coming sometime in 2012. The business community has said vagueness in the law hinders business, and they have hinted that Romney might pull back on enforcing it because the economy is the top issue in the election.
Also, the war in Afghanistan and relations between Iran and Israel are expected to be among the debate's six major questions by Bob Schieffer, the chief Washington correspondent for CBS News and moderator of Face the Nation.
China will also be a major topic. Romney has said he would "crack down on China," painting the country as one of the biggest thieves of America's intellectual property as well as the home of cyber-attacks on law firms and United States government agencies.
Republicans have criticized Obama and the DOJ on several other international issues, including Holder's initial decision to try five September 11 terror suspects in Manhattan's federal trial court, just blocks from Ground Zero; the release of top-secret documents about the methods used by CIA interrogators; and issues surrounding Arizona's immigration law.
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