Feb 14, 2019 · William Barr was confirmed Thursday by the Senate to serve as President Trump’s next attorney general, sending him to lead a Justice …
Feb 14, 2019 · William P. Barr Confirmed As 85th Attorney General of the United States. Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour. President Donald J. Trump participates in swearing-in of William P. Barr administered by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on …
Feb 14, 2019 · William Barr, nominee to be US Attorney General, testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, January 15, 2019.
Feb 14, 2019 · During Barr's first term as attorney general, from 1991 to 1993, he made it harder for asylum-seekers to enter the United States. He sent …
United States Attorney General | |
---|---|
Incumbent Merrick Garland since March 11, 2021 | |
United States Department of Justice | |
Style | Mr. Attorney General (informal) The Honorable (formal) |
Member of | Cabinet National Security Council |
Matthew Rodriguez | 2021 – 2021 |
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John K. Van de Kamp | 1983 – 1991 |
George Deukemejian | 1979 – 1983 |
Evelle J. Younger | 1971 – 1979 |
Thomas C. Lynch | 1964 – 1971 |
Attorney General | Years of service |
---|---|
Merrick Garland | 2021-Present |
Loretta Lynch | 2015-2017 |
Eric Holder | 2009-2015 |
Michael B. Mukasey | 2007-2009 |
An old guard conservative, Barr has held many of Washington’s most influential legal perches, including a stint as the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, where he helped shape legal opinions that influenced White House policy and action.
In their rejection, many Democrats have pointed to a 19-page memo Barr wrote and sent to senior White House and Justice Department officials last year that criticized an element of the special counsel probe.
Barr will face a new landscape of challenges in his second turn at Justice, including foreign threats and cyber crimes that were not on the department’s radar, or even physical possibilities, in the early 1990s.
During Barr's first term as attorney general, from 1991 to 1993, he made it harder for asylum-seekers to enter the United States. He sent immigration officers to foreign airports to screen people before they boarded planes to America.
As attorney general, Barr released a report in 1992 called "The Case for More Incarceration" as a plan to control soaring crime rates. It became a template for policies that fed mass incarceration and reflected Barr's long-standing attitudes on law and order.
Like Sessions, Barr is against marijuana legalization. But the new attorney general has indicated that he isn't interested in going after marijuana growers and distributors in states that allow the drug.
That apparent flexibility reflects the difference in political drive between Sessions, who was one of the Senate's far-right members, and Barr, who has never held elected office or served as a prosecutor on a case in court, said Brett Tolman, a former U.S. attorney in Utah who is now a criminal defense lawyer.
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.
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.
In 1989 Barr left private practice to join the U.S. Justice Department. He was first appointed assistant attorney general, rose to deputy attorney general, and then became attorney general.
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.
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.
While Barr presented Mueller’s conclusions as nothing less than a total exoneration of Trump, the report itself declared, “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.
Barr responded by refusing to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. 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 May 1990 , Barr was appointed Deputy Attorney General, the official responsible for day-to-day management of the Department. According to media reports, Barr was generally praised for his professional management of the Department.
Upon leaving the DOJ in 1993, Barr was appointed by Virginia Governor George Allen to co-chair a commission to implement tougher criminal justice policies and abolish parole in the state. Barr has been described as a "leader of the parole-abolition campaign" in Virginia.
Early life and education. Barr was born in New York City in 1950. His father, Donald Barr, taught English literature at Columbia University before becoming headmaster of the Dalton School in Manhattan and later the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York, both members of the Ivy Preparatory School League.
Barr's mother, Mary Margaret ( née Ahern), also taught at Columbia. Barr's father was Jewish and raised in Judaism but later converted to Christianity and joined the Catholic Church. His mother is of Irish ancestry. Barr was raised as a Catholic. Barr was the second of four sons, and his younger brother Stephen Barr is a professor of physics at the University of Delaware.
His father, Donald Barr, taught English literature at Columbia University before becoming headmaster of the Dalton School in Manhattan and later the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York, both members of the Ivy Preparatory School League. Barr's mother, Mary Margaret ( née Ahern), also taught at Columbia.
During his first tenure as AG, media characterized Barr as "a staunch conservative who rarely hesitates to put his hardline views into action". He was described as affable with a dry, self-deprecating wit. The New York Times described the "central theme" of his tenure to be "his contention that violent crime can be reduced only by expanding Federal and state prisons to jail habitual violent offenders". In an effort to prioritize violent crime, Barr reassigned three hundred FBI agents from counterintelligence work to investigations of gang violence. The New York Times called this move "the largest single manpower shift in the bureau's history".
The Case for More Incarceration. In 1992, Barr authored a report, The Case for More Incarceration, which argued for an increase in the United States incarceration rate, the creation of a national program to construct more prisons, and the abolition of parole release.
The 54 senators voting “yes”, thereby confirming Barr as attorney general, represent 48 percent of voting age Americans, or 107 million people.
Democrats Joe Manchin, Doug Jones and Kyrsten Sinema voted to confirm Barr and one Republican, Rand Paul, voted against Barr.