Barr was the second person in U.S. history to serve twice as attorney general (the first was John J. Crittenden ). Barr attended Columbia University in New York City, earning a bachelor’s degree in government in 1971 and a master’s degree in Chinese studies in 1973.
Attorney General William Barr resigns, effective Dec. 23 Published Mon, Dec 14 2020 5:44 PM EST Updated Mon, Dec 14 2020 7:33 PM EST Kevin Breuninger @KevinWilliamB
“Just had a very nice meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr at the White House,” Trump said in a pair of tweets. “Our relationship has been a very good one, he has done an outstanding job!”
Time Warner paid him $970,000 in cash and $1 million in equity awards for serving on its board from 2009 to 2016, when the company agreed to combine with AT&T. That deal was lucrative for Barr—he disclosed $1.7 million of income related to it on his financial disclosure report.
Rob BontaOn April 23, 2021, Rob Bonta was sworn in as the 34th Attorney General of the State of California, the first person of Filipino descent and the second Asian-American to occupy the position.
Bush (1991–93) and Donald Trump (2019–20). Barr was the second person in U.S. history to serve twice as attorney general (the first was John J. Crittenden).
William Pelham BarrWilliam Pelham Barr was sworn in as the 85th Attorney General of the United States on February 14, 2019. He is only the second person in history to serve as U.S. Attorney General twice. Barr previously served as Attorney General from 1991 to 1993 during the administration of George H. W.
Matthew WhitakerPreceded byJeff SessionsSucceeded byWilliam BarrChief of Staff to the United States Attorney GeneralIn office September 22, 2017 – November 7, 201822 more rows
William BarrOfficial portrait, 201977th and 85th United States Attorney GeneralIn office February 14, 2019 – December 23, 2020PresidentDonald Trump30 more rows
Eric Himpton Holder Jr. (born January 21, 1951) is an American lawyer who served as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States from 2009 to 2015. Holder, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama, was the first African American to hold the position of U.S. attorney general.
2019-2023Contract:5 yr(s) / $67,500,000Signing Bonus$13,000,000Average Salary$13,500,000Total Guarantees$33,000,000Guaranteed at Signing$15,900,0001 more row
Merrick GarlandUnited States / Attorney general
Bureau of Aeronautics Resident Representative.
Jeff SessionsOfficial portrait, 201784th United States Attorney GeneralIn office February 9, 2017 – November 7, 2018PresidentDonald Trump33 more rows
Rod Jay Rosenstein (/ˈroʊzənˌstaɪn/; born January 13, 1965) is an American attorney who served as the 37th United States deputy attorney general from April 2017 until May 2019.
William Barr, in full William Pelham Barr, (born May 23, 1950, New York City), American lawyer and government official who served as attorney general of the United States during the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush (1991–93) and Donald Trump (2019–20). Barr was the second person in U.S.
Barr vowed that, if confirmed, he would recuse himself from matters related to the merger. On February 14, 2019, Barr was confirmed by the Senate in a vote that fell largely along party lines. He was sworn in hours later, becoming the second person in U.S. history to serve twice as attorney general.
Barr argued that the firing of Comey was a “facially-lawful” exercise of “ Executive discretion” and that obstruction would not apply unless Trump had already been found guilty of an underlying crime. Such arguments were advanced by many Trump supporters as well as by advocates of increased presidential authority.
In June 2018 Barr, a private citizen with no formal ties to the U.S. government, sent an unsolicited 19-page memo to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. In it Barr disparaged Robert Mueller ’s investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He was particularly focused on the possibility of Mueller pursuing an obstruction of justice case against Pres. Donald Trump over Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. Barr argued that the firing of Comey was a “facially-lawful” exercise of “ Executive discretion” and that obstruction would not apply unless Trump had already been found guilty of an underlying crime. Such arguments were advanced by many Trump supporters as well as by advocates of increased presidential authority.
In addition, the Justice Department refused to comply with a subpoena for the unredacted Mueller report, an official stating that the Judiciary Committee’s request did not constitute “legitimate oversight.” In July 2019 the House voted to hold Barr in criminal contempt for refusing to provide documents related to the Trump administration’s unsuccessful efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. As Barr was head of the Justice Department, the legal body that would be tasked with prosecuting such an offense, the move was almost entirely symbolic.
Throughout his term as attorney general Barr would use his position to insulate the White House and Trump’s allies from congressional oversight and federal prosecution. Most notably, the Justice Department directly intervened in the cases of former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump adviser Roger Stone. Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators, saw the charges against him dismissed, only to have that dismissal reversed by a U.S. appellate court. In the Stone case, the Justice Department’s own sentencing recommendation was countermanded by a Barr-appointed official after Trump tweeted that he felt that it was too harsh. In both cases, the federal attorneys overseeing the prosecutions resigned in protest. Trump eventually pardoned Flynn and commuted Stone’s sentence.
During the confirmation process, congressional Democrats raised concerns about Barr’s memo to Rosenstein. Barr, as attorney general, would have oversight of an investigation whose direction he had characterized as “fatally misconceived.”. Barr’s longtime association with Time Warner was also scrutinized.
Barr was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts on Thursday. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., on Thursday said he would vote against Barr's nomination because he has "not committed to making special counsel findings public and not committed to public testimony from Mueller."
Barr’s confirmation came the same day former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was fired by the president last year, detailed the central role he played in the bureau's Russia probe and the eventual appointment of a special counsel -- while describing Justice Department meetings where officials discussed ousting the president.
Barr has said that he will be as transparent as possible under Justice Department regulations, not ing that regulations call for the report to be confidential, requiring only that the report explains the decisions to pursue or to decline prosecutions, which could be as simple as a short list, or a report of hundreds of pages.
After his confirmation hearing last month, Barr disclosed that he had discussed Mueller’s investigation with Vice President Pence, but insisted that he neither provided legal advice to the White House nor received any confidential information from Pence. Barr also defended a memo he sent to the Justice Department last year that was critical of the Russia probe, explaining that it was narrow in scope and based on potentially incomplete information.
Barr, who previously served as attorney general under the first President Bush, has embraced positions on immigration and crime that were also backed by Sessions, a former federal prosecutor and U.S. senator from Alabama. But the two men are not identical in their views, said John Malcolm, vice president of the Institute for Constitutional ...
William Barr, who served as attorney general under the first President Bush, was sworn in for a second tenure on Thursday. Andrew Harnik / AP file
He sent immigration officers to foreign airports to screen people before they boarded planes to America. And he blocked Haitians fleeing a 1991 coup, arranging for them to be detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and screened for HIV and AIDS before they could claim asylum at the U.S. border.
While no such prosecutions have happened, they remain a possibility, so Barr's views will be key. In January, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he wouldn't go after marijuana companies in states that have legalized it.
Even as those views grew less popular, Barr held onto them.
Barr has historically supported mandatory minimum sentences and other tough-on-crime policies. But he may soften.
And he blocked Haitians fle eing a 1991 coup, arranging for them to be detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and screened for HIV and AIDS before they could claim asylum at the U.S. border. More recently, while in private law practice, Barr has defended Trump's travel ban that primarily affected Muslim countries.
William Barr is an American lawyer and government official who has served as Attorney General in the Donald Trump administration since February 14, 2019.
President Bush was first sworn in as attorney general during Bush's administration on November 26, 1991.
Barr’s long career in public life led some justice department veterans to welcome his nomination as attorney general in late 2018, given concerns about who else Trump might pick.
William Barr, 69 and a veteran of 40 years in Washington, was confirmed one year ago as attorney general, a position with broad influence over the administration of justice and broad sway over public faith placed in it.
The interview was met with outrage and eye-rolls among critics who saw a wide divergence between what Barr said and everything else he has been doing.
In July, Barr traveled to London to ask intelligence officials there for help with the investigation. He made a similar trip to Italy in September. Recently, Barr announced the creation of an “intake process” for information gathered by Rudy Giuliani about investigations tied to Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.
Those developments included Barr’s intervention in a case involving Trump’s friend Roger Stone, prompting the withdrawal of four career prosecutors; the resignation from government of a prominent former US attorney previously sidelined by Barr; and the issuance of a rare public warning by a federal judge about the independence of the courts.
The fear is that Barr’s competence has flipped from virtue to vice owing to a quality that he appears to lack or have lost: judgment in the face of an untethered president.
Barr’s intervention in the Roger Stone case was described as a ‘break-the-glass’ moment by one former US attorney. Photograph: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
In 2017, Barr signed on to work with the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, which has an unusual connection to the Trump administration. The firm pays an estimated $8.4 million in annual rent to lease part of a San Francisco skyscraper in which President Trump owns a 30% stake.
The biggest benefit, however, came upon retirement. Barr stepped down from the company at the end of 2008, receiving a $17.1 million distribution from Verizon’s income deferral plan, according to an SEC filing. On top of that, company documents also detail an additional $10.4 million separation payment for Barr.
That deal was lucrative for Barr—he disclosed $1.7 million of income related to it on his financial disclosure report. But the merger was troubling to Trump, whose Justice Department tried to block it. During his confirmation hearing, Barr promised to recuse himself from the case as attorney general.
W. Bush and Donald J. Trump. But he made his fortune out of office, collecting more than $50 million in compensation as an executive and director for some of America’s largest companies.
Retiring did not mean Barr was done working. The year after he left Verizon, he joined the boards of two publicly traded companies, Dominion Resources and Time Warner. From 2009 to 2018, Dominion paid Barr $1.2 million in cash and granted him another $1.1 million in stock awards, according to SEC filings.
Attorney General William Barr, the head of the Department of Justice, will leave office before Christmas, President Donald Trump said Monday. The widely anticipated announcement of Barr’s departure came just moments after President-elect Joe Biden ’s victory over Trump was formalized by the Electoral College.
William Barr takes a seat after a break in his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination to be attorney general of the United States on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 15, 2019. Yuri Gripas | Reuters.
On Saturday, Trump retweeted a post that said Barr “should be fired by the end of business today” if the attorney general had worked to keep a criminal investigation of Hunter Biden secret during the election, as The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The end of Barr’s tenure is the final step in the deterioration of Trump’s relationship with his attorney general, an alliance that was once considered to be among the strongest Trump had with any member of his Cabinet.
Barr’s ouster deepens an ongoing leadership crisis at the Justice Department. The attorney general had faced intense criticism, including from current and former DOJ officials, that he had politicized the department.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Barr had worked to conceal the probes involving Hunter Biden’s business dealings and finances during the election season, despite pressure from Trump and Republicans seeking information on the Democratic nominee’s son.
Barr in early December directly contradicted Trump when he revealed that the Department of Justice had not found any evidence of large-scale voter or election fraud that would overturn Biden’s projected victory.