Appointing Obama as the nation's top law enforcement official would help reassure voters rattled by the polarized US political system that President-elect Biden will govern in the national interest, said Douglas Kmiec, who headed the Office of Legal Counsel under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Kmiec, who also worked as US ambassador to Malta in the Obama administration, made his case for the former president becoming attorney general in an essay published on Friday by The Hill. Besides providing an "unusual solution" for healing a political system shaken by the controversy over Biden's election victory, he said, the AG post would be "perfect preparation" for the former president to subsequently become a Supreme Court justice.

But Kmiec's notion of Obama as a reassuring force across party lines was met with strong pushback. "Just when I was thinking the government couldn't be more corrupt in the Biden administration, there you go," one Twitter user said.

"Black folks will see it as poetic justice, and many people will be happy about it – even the ones who hate the federal government,"