Dec 07, 2018 · President Donald Trump has nominated William Barr to be the new attorney general, a post he held in the 1990s.
Feb 05, 2019 · In 1991, he was confirmed to be attorney general by a voice vote of the Senate. His nomination was reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee under Chairman Joe Biden two days after his hearing. He was also confirmed to be deputy attorney general and assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel in unanimous consent or voice votes.
Dec 07, 2018 · Trump nominates William Barr to be his next attorney general By Maegan Vazquez and Kaitlan Collins , CNN Updated 3:44 PM EST, Fri December 7, 2018
Barr’s letter came to light in December 2018 after Trump nominated him to succeed Jeff Sessions as attorney general. The relationship between Trump and Sessions had grown strained over Sessions’s failure to “un-recuse” himself from the Russia investigation, and Barr was seen as an unwavering champion of executive power.
Matthew Whitaker | |
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In office November 7, 2018 – February 14, 2019 | |
President | Donald Trump |
Deputy | Rod Rosenstein |
Preceded by | Jeff Sessions |
William Barr is one of the most qualified attorney general nominees in history, having already served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush.
Democrats have asserted that a Barr memorandum on specific legal questions in the Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election suggests he might not allow an unbiased investigation to move forward.
As for how quickly Barr could be confirmed, one congressional source notes it’s usually at least two months from nomination to confirmation and said if the appropriate paperwork gets to the Hill in time, a hearing could be held in January.
Barr previously worked at the CIA in the 1970s and served in several leadership roles at the Justice Department serving under President George H.W. Bush. He ultimately served as attorney general from 1991 through 1993. He subsequently served in several executive and leadership positions at corporations, including Verizon Communications.
Officials at the DOJ are thrilled with Trump’s selection of Barr, multiple current and former officials told CNN. He’s universally seen as solid, reliable conservative, but also someone who can get confirmed.
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.
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.”.
Barr returned to government service in 1989, becoming assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel during the George H.W. Bush administration. He became deputy attorney general in 1990 before becoming attorney general in 1991. His appointment was unanimously approved.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Barr's tenure involved another special counsel investigation: Lawrence Walsh's probe into the Iran-Contra affair, where Reagan administration officials approved the sale of arms to Iran to help fund anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua.
Barr stayed on with Verizon for eight years before retiring in 2008. His work dealt with deregulation and major corporate mergers. He argued two cases before the Supreme Court.
Barr married Christine Moynihan in 1973 and the couple has three daughters, all of whom practice law, according to Fox News columnist Judith Miller. Daughter Mary Daly works at the Justice Department as director of opioid enforcement and prevention efforts, heading the Trump administration's legal effort to tackle the crisis.
The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United Stateson all legal matters. The attorney general is a statutory member of the Cabinet of the United States.
The title "attorney general" is an example of a noun (attorney) followed by a postpositive adjective(general).[8]". General" is a description of the type of attorney, not a title or rank in itself (as it would be in the military).[8]
Barr worked for the CIA from 1971 to 1977 while attending graduate school and law school. He was first hired as a summer intern for two years. During his law school years he was an analyst in the Intelligence Directorate division from 1973 to 1975, and then transitioning to an assistant in the Office of Legislative Counsel and an agency liaison to Congress from 1975 to 1977.
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 Iri…
A lifelong Republican, Barr takes an expansive view of executive powers and supports "law and order" policies. Considered an establishment Republican at the time of his confirmation, Barr gained a reputation as someone loyal to Trump and his policies during his second tenure as attorney general. His efforts to support the sitting president politically during his DOJ office tenure have be…
Barr has been married to Christine Moynihan Barr since 1973. She holds a master's degree in library science, and together they have three daughters: Mary Barr Daly, Patricia Barr Straughn, and Margaret (Meg) Barr. Their eldest daughter, Mary, born 1977/1978, was a senior Justice Department official who oversaw the department's anti-opioid and addiction efforts; Patricia, born 1981/1982, was counsel for the House Agriculture Committee; and Meg, born 1984/1985, is a fo…
In 1992, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D) by George Washington University.
• — (2022). One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 978-0-06-315860-3.
• Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections
• Timeline of investigations into Donald Trump and Russia (January–June 2018)
• Timeline of investigations into Donald Trump and Russia (2019)