President Trump Will Nominate William P. Barr as Attorney General

President Donald Trump said he intended to nominate William P. Barr, who served as attorney general during the first Bush administration from 1991 to 1993, to return as head of the Justice Department. A graduate of George Washington University’s law school, Barr, 68, got his start in the 1970s working for the CIA and later worked in the Reagan White House before leaving for private practice. In 1989, President George Bush appointed him to lead the Justice Department’s powerful Office of Legal Counsel, and later elevated him to deputy attorney general and then attorney general. After the Bush administration, Barr spent most of his postgovernment career as the top lawyer for the telecommunications company that became Verizon, from which he retired in 2008. He later joined the Kirkland & Ellis law firm.

Barr has criticized aspects of the Russia investigation, including suggesting that the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, hired too many prosecutors who had donated to Democratic campaigns. Barr has defended Trump’s calls for a new criminal investigation into his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, including over a uranium mining deal the Obama administration approved when she was secretary of state. “There is nothing inherently wrong about a president calling for an investigation,” Barr said. “Although an investigation shouldn’t be launched just because a president wants it, the ultimate question is whether the matter warrants investigation.” Barr added then that he saw more basis for investigating the uranium deal than any supposed conspiracy between Trump’s associates and Russia. “To the extent it is not pursuing these matters, the department is abdicating its responsibility,” he said.