William Barr is an American attorney who served as the United States attorney general twice in the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush (from 1991 to 1993) and Donald Trump (in 2019-20). He had started his career working for the Central Intelligence Agency and then worked at the law firm Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge, during which period he also spent a year in the White House of the Ronald Reagan administration. He joined the Department of Justice as an Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel and was promoted to Deputy Attorney General and eventually to the 77th Attorney General. He justified US invasion of Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega as the head of OLC and authorized the successful freeing of hostages at the Talladega federal prison as deputy attorney general. As attorney general, he argued for an increase in incarceration rate and advised President Bush to pardon six officials involved in the Iran–Contra affair. During his second tenure, he was often criticized for his handling of various issues like the Mueller report and intervention in cases of Trump associates, but denied Trump’s claim of irregularities in the 2020 presidential elections.