Farr was nominated by President Donald Trump for a judgeship on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in 2017, and again in 2018. Farr was considered a controversial nominee due to his alleged involvement in suppression of African-American voters.
On November 29, 2018, Republican U.S. Senators Jeff Flake and Tim Scott announced their opposition to Farr's nomination, together with unanimous opposition of Senate Democrats, made it impossible for Farr's nomination to be confirmed. Farr was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He replaced acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, who held the top post since Trump fired his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, in November 2018. Trump has said that Barr was his "first choice from day one."
He received his Juris Doctor from the Emory University School of Law and a Master of Laws in labor law from the Georgetown Law. After graduating from law school, Farr served as a law clerk to Judge Frank William Bullock Jr. of the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.
At Barr's confirmation hearing last year, he expressed support for the border wall and a federal law banning anti-LGBT discrimination, argued against sanctuary cities and immigrants "abusing the asylum system," and echoed Trump's mistrust of the press. Despite the rhetoric in his earlier memo, Barr also argued that Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election must proceed.
Two days after Barr received Mueller's report, Barr sent a four-page summary to Congress, saying: "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.".
Barr has shown more disdain for the Russia probe -- and other investigations into the President -- as time has passed. In December 2019, for example, Barr described the Russia investigation as a "travesty," and lambasted former FBI officials involved in opening it, claiming "the greatest danger to our free system" is that the Obama administration "spied" on the Trump campaign in a way that he said sought to influence the 2016 election. ABC News did not find evidence to substantiate those claims.
In 1992, Barr wrote a report, "The Case for More Incarceration" in which he argued for an increase in the U.S. incarceration rate and number of prisons and for the end of parole release. Also while serving as attorney general under Bush, Barr also led the Department’s response to the Savings & Loan crisis, oversaw the investigation of the Pan Am 103 bombing, and coordinated counter-terrorism activities during the First Gulf War, according to his official biography.
This week, Trump congratulated Barr for "taking charge" in the case of the president's longtime friend and former campaign adviser Roger Stone after the Justice Department leadership overruled the sentencing recommendation made by career prosecutors, proposing more lenient prison time . Democrats accused Trump of blatant political interference to help his friend and Barr of abusing his power to help Trump politically. In an unprecedented turn of events, the entire team of four federal prosecutors involved in Stone's case withdrew, apparently in protest.
Democrats have accused Barr of using the power of the Justice Department -- what is supposed to be the nation's highest, independent, law-enforcement body -- to help President Trump politically. What you might not know: Barr is a musician.
Upon leaving the Bush administration, Barr took a 15-year break from federal service. For 14 years he worked for the telecommunications company GTE Corporation and helped lead its merger with Bell Atlantic to become Verizon Communications. He retired from Verizon in 2008 as a multi-millionaire.
The day after the election, we noted how Trump’s job rating was higher in places like Florida (51 percent) and Georgia (53 percent) than his national average (45 percent), per the exit polls. That’s the good news for Trump and the GOP – how they can reshape electorates where the president campaigns.
Three days after Election Day 2018, here are some pretty striking numbers from the national exit poll:
Farr was considered a controversial nominee due to his alleged involvement in suppression of African-American voters. On November 29, 2018, Republican U.S. Senators Jeff Flake and Tim Scott announced their opposition to Farr's nomination, together with unanimous opposition of Senate Democrats, made it impossible for Farr's nomination ...
In 2010, Farr advised the North Carolina General Assembly in what federal courts termed a "racial gerrymander" of the state's voting districts. Farr was involved with drafting the 2013 North Carolina voter I.D. law and helped legislators evaluate racial data requested from the North Carolina DMV, which showed that black voters disproportionately lacked driver's licenses. The DMV data also "revealed that African Americans disproportionately used early voting, same-day registration, and out-of-precinct voting", all of which were curtailed by the law, while absentee voting, disproportionately used by white voters, was exempted from the voter ID requirements. Farr defended the voting restrictions in court before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The appeals court struck down the law, writing that the law targeted African Americans "with almost surgical precision."
The DOJ sued Helms, saying that the mailers were intended to intimidate African-Americans from voting. As the campaign's legal counsel, Farr defended Helms in the DOJ lawsuit. Farr himself "denied any role in drafting the postcards and said he did not know about them until after the mailers were sent" and was "'appalled' when he found out about them." Gerald Hebert, a former Department of Justice investigator, contradicted Farr's denial, stating that according to "contemporaneous handwritten notes", Farr partook in a meeting planning the postcards. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund called upon the Senate to further question Farr about his apparent lack of candor. Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the criticisms of Farr “utterly false character assassination nonsense.”
Early life and education. Farr was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Liberal Studies, summa cum laude, from Hillsdale College, where he was co-salutatorian. He received his Juris Doctor from the Emory University School of Law and a Master of Laws in labor law from the Georgetown Law.
Senator Cory Booker at a protest opposing Trump's nomination of Farr in 2018. On January 5, 2018 , President Trump announced his intent to renominate Farr to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. On January 8, 2018 , his renomination was sent to the Senate.
On October 19, 2017, his nomination was reported out of committee by a party-line vote of 11–9. On January 3, 2018, Farr's nomination was returned to the President under Rule XXXI, Paragraph 6 of the United States Senate. Senator Cory Booker at a protest opposing Trump's nomination of Farr in 2018.
In 1990, Farr served as the lead legal counsel on Jesse Helms ' campaign. The campaign mailed two batches of postcards, totaling about 124,000, "virtually exclusively to black voters" warning "that residency requirements were strict and vote fraud was punishable by imprisonment." The first batch was sent "exclusively to the black voters who had a change of address associated with their name", while the recipients of the second batch were 93.1% African-American.
August 1: Bangert sends a letter from the OAG with an informal opinion about limiting foreclosure sales amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
October 2: Mateer resigns his position with the OAG. Representatives from the First Liberty Institute confirmed that Mateer, who had worked as the organization’s general counsel prior to his employment with the OAG, had returned to work for them.
June 2: The OAG issues an opinion on the DPS open records request that took no opinion on whether the documents should be released, according to the whistleblower lawsuit.
May 20, 2020: Paul’s attorneys submit an open records request to the OAG requesting the same, unredacted documents that they had sought from DPS in March, according to the whistleblower lawsuit. The suit also claims that Paxton asked Vassar for a copy of the documents and directed him to find a way to release the documents to Paul’s attorneys.
The contract says that Cammack “shall prepare a report documenting any potential criminal charges that may be discovered in the course of the investigation.”
Fall 2019: Paul submits an open record request to the Texas State Securities Board for documents related to the FBI raid, per the whistleblower lawsuit. The Board subsequently requested an opinion on the open records request to the OAG.
According to the whistleblower lawsuit, Paxton had asked Cammack to begin work as outside counsel on September 3 even though the contract had not yet been formally approved.