William Barr
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William Pelham Barr (born May 23, 1950) is an American attorney who served as United States Attorney General in the administration of President George H. W. Bush from 1991 to 1993 and again in the first administration of President Donald Trump from 2019 to 2020. Born and raised in New York City, Barr was educated at the Horace Mann School, Columbia University, and George Washington University Law School. From 1971 to 1977, Barr was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency. He then served as a law clerk to judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In the 1980s, Barr worked for the law firm Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, with one year's work in the White House of the Ronald Reagan administration dealing with legal policies. Before becoming attorney general in 1991, Barr held numerous other posts within the Department of Justice, including leading the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) and serving as deputy attorney general. From 1994 to 2008, Barr did corporate legal work for GTE and its successor company Verizon Communications. From 2009 to 2018, Barr served on the board of directors for Time Warner. Barr is a longtime proponent of the unitary executive theory of nearly unfettered presidential authority over the executive branch of the U.S. government. In 1989, Barr, as the head of the OLC, justified the U.S. invasion of Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega. As deputy attorney general, Barr authorized an FBI operation in 1991 which freed hostages at the Talladega federal prison. An influential advocate for tougher criminal justice policies, Barr as attorney general in 1992 authored the report The Case for More Incarceration, where he argued for an increase in the United States incarceration rate. Under Barr's advice, President George H. W. Bush in 1992 pardoned six officials involved in the Iran–Contra affair. Barr became attorney general for the second time in 2019. During his term, he received criticism from many for his handling of several challenges, including his letter on the Mueller report, interventions in the convictions and sentences of former advisors to President Trump, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, his order of the federal government to resume federal executions after 17 years, and allegations of political interference in the removal of Geoffrey Berman from his Southern District of New York attorney position in a matter pertaining to the indictment of Turkish bank Halkbank, a bank with close personal ties to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. On December 1, 2020, contradicting Trump's false claims of widespread interference following his electoral defeat, Barr stated that FBI and Justice Department investigations found no evidence of irregularities that would have changed the outcome of the presidential election. Barr is the second person to ever serve two non-consecutive terms as U.S. attorney general, after John J. Crittenden.