page_title: William Barr
section_title: Second nomination and confirmation
hierarchical_section_title: William Barr / Career / U.S. Attorney General (2019–present) / Second nomination and confirmation
caption_attribution_description: English: William Barr meets with the Justice Department leadership
context_page_description: William Pelham Barr is an American attorney serving as United States Attorney General since 2019, and previously from 1991 to 1993. He served as the 77th U.S. Attorney General from 1991 to 1993 during the George H. W. Bush administration, and returned to the post as the 85th U.S. Attorney General in February 2019 during the Donald Trump administration.
  From 1973 to 1977, Barr was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency during his schooling years. He then served as a law clerk to judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey. In the 1980s, Barr worked for the law firm Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, sandwiching a 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 and serving as Deputy Attorney General. From 1994 to 2008, Barr did corporate legal work for GTE and its successor company Verizon Communications, which made him a multimillionaire. From 2009 to 2018, Barr served on the board of directors for Time Warner.
context_section_description: On December 7, 2018, President Donald Trump announced Barr's nomination to succeed Jeff Sessions. Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman reported that Trump had sought Barr as chief defense lawyer for Trump regarding the special counsel investigation headed by Robert Mueller after Barr made three positions known. First, Barr supported Trump's firing of Comey on May 9, 2017. Second, he questioned the appointments of some of Mueller's prosecutors due to political donations they had made to the Clinton campaign. Third, he alleged there were conflicts of interest of two appointees to the Special Counsel Team, Jennie Rhee and Bruce Ohr.
  Barr was confirmed as Attorney General on February 14, 2019, by a 54–45 near party-line vote, with Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) as the three Democrats to vote Yea. Republicans Rand Paul (R-KY) voted No and Richard Burr (R-NC) did not vote. Later that day, Barr was sworn-in as the nation's 85th Attorney General by Chief Justice John Roberts in a ceremony at the White House. He is the first person to be appointed to a second non-consecutive term as Attorney General since John J. Crittenden in 1850.
caption: Barr meets with the Justice Department leadership.
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