William Barr

William Barr (born May 23, 1950, New York City) is an 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. history to serve twice as attorney general (the first was John J. Crittenden).

Bush administration and private practice

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. He worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1973 to 1977, first as an analyst and then in the legal department. He simultaneously attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., from which he obtained a law degree in 1977. After being admitted to the bar, he joined the Washington, D.C., law firm Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge.

From 1982 to 1983 Barr worked on the Domestic Policy Council during U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan’s first term in office. He became a partner in his law firm in 1985. 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 that position, which he held from 1991 to 1993, he concentrated on the administration’s law enforcement directives, including a crackdown on savings and loan fraud that reached its peak with the federal prosecution of Lincoln Savings and Loan chief Charles Keating. Barr also directed the investigation of the terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103.

After leaving the attorney general post, Barr returned to his law partnership. In 1994 he became executive vice president and general counsel at the GTE Corporation (a post he retained after GTE merged with Bell Atlantic in 2000 and became Verizon Communications). He stayed with Verizon until 2008 and was named “of counsel” (an attorney who has a close and ongoing relationship with a practice but who is neither an associate nor a partner) at Kirkland & Ellis the following year. Barr also served on a few boards of directors, including those of the media conglomerate Time Warner (2009–18), the energy company Dominion Resources (2009–18), and the Och-Ziff Capital Management Group (2016–18).

In March 2017 federal agents raided the headquarters of the manufacturing giant Caterpillar as part of an investigation into the company’s offshore profit handling and tax sheltering practices. Two weeks later Caterpillar retained Barr, who had returned to Kirkland & Ellis as of counsel specifically “to take a fresh look at Caterpillar’s disputes with the government.”

Attorney general for the Trump administration

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.

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. 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.”

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Barr’s longtime association with Time Warner was also scrutinized. The Justice Department had unsuccessfully sought to block the June 2018 acquisition of Time Warner by telecommunications giant AT&T on antitrust grounds. That case remained under appeal, but, as a result of that deal, Barr had received more than $1.7 million in cash as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in AT&T stock and stock options. 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. Barely a month into his term, Barr would be thrust into the spotlight when, on March 22, Mueller concluded his nearly two-year-long investigation and submitted his confidential report to the attorney general. Two days later Barr released a four-page summary, which stated that the “investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia” and also stated that “the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”

Almost immediately Mueller raised objections to Barr’s characterization of the Russia investigation and its findings. On March 25 and March 27 Mueller sent letters to Barr asking him to release additional information from the report, as Barr’s summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the investigation and had, in fact, created “public confusion about critical aspects” of its results. This disagreement happened outside the public eye, however, and Barr’s interpretation would frame the public narrative surrounding Mueller’s conclusions for nearly a month. On April 18 the redacted Mueller report was made public, and its language was at odds with Barr’s March 24 summary, particularly on the matter of obstruction of justice. 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. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Congressional Democrats accused Barr of downplaying the report’s findings and of using the Justice Department to shield Trump from scrutiny. 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 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.

A visible rift between Barr and Trump began to appear in the wake of the November 2020 presidential election. Trump claimed, without providing evidence, that Joe Biden’s victory was invalid due to widespread fraud. Barr, in an unusual break with the president, publicly stated that the Justice Department had found no evidence to support those allegations. On December 14, 2020, Barr announced that he would resign as attorney general, effective December 23. In One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General (2022), Barr defended his tenure in the Trump administration and criticized the president. He notably claimed that Trump “surrounded himself with…whack jobs” after losing the election and warned against a second Trump presidency.