United States Assistant Attorney General

Flag of a U.S. assistant attorney general.
Motto in English: For The Lady Who Pursues Justice.

Many of the divisions and offices of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) are headed by an assistant attorney general.

The president of the United States appoints individuals to the position of assistant attorney general with the advice and consent of the Senate. ^[1] United States Department of Justice components that are led by an assistant attorney general are:

• Antitrust Division
• Civil Division
• Civil Rights Division
• Criminal Division
• Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD)
• Justice Management Division (JMD)
• National Security Division
• Office of Justice Programs (OJP)
• Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA)
• Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)
• Office of Legal Policy (OLP)
• Tax Division

Assistant attorneys general report either to the deputy attorney general (in the case of the Criminal Division, the Justice Management Division and the Offices of Legal Counsel, Legislative Affairs, and Legal Policy) or to the associate attorney general (in the case of the Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environment & Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions and the Office of Justice Programs).

List of U.S. assistant attorneys general

Assistant Attorney General

Name	Years of service	Appointed by President
Titian J. Coffey	1880–1884	Chester A. Arthur
Zachariah Montgomery	1885–1889	Grover Cleveland
John C. Chaney	1889–1893	Benjamin Harrison
William Arden Maury	1889–1893
Holmes Conrad	1893–1895	Grover Cleveland
Joshua Eric Dodge	1893–1897
Edward Baldwin Whitney	1895–1897
James Edmund Boyd	1897–1900	William McKinley
James M. Beck	1900–1903
James Clark McReynolds	1903–1907	Theodore Roosevelt
Edward Terry Sanford	1907–1908
James Alexander Fowler	1908–1911
William H. Lewis	1911	William Taft
Ernest Knaebel	1912–1916
William L. Frierson	1917–1920	Woodrow Wilson
Annette Abbott Adams	1920–1921
Mabel Walker Willebrandt	1921–1929	Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge
Roger Wilkins	1966–1969	Lyndon Johnson
Wesley Pomeroy	1968–1969	Richard Nixon

Antitrust Division

Name	Years of service	Appointed by
William Joseph Donovan	1926–1927	Calvin Coolidge
John Lord O'Brian	1929–1933	Herbert Hoover
Robert H. Jackson	1937–1938	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Thurman Arnold	1938–1943
Wendell Berge	1943–1947
John F. Sonnett	1947–1948	Harry S. Truman
Herbert Bergson	1948–1950
Leonard Bessman	1950–1951
H. Graham Morison	1951–1952
Newell A. Clapp	1952–1953	acting
Stanley Barnes	1953–1956	Eisenhower
Victor R. Hansen	1956–1959
Robert A. Bicks	1959–1961
Lee Loevinger	1961–1963	Kennedy
William Horsley Orrick, Jr.	1963–1965
Donald F. Turner	1965–1968	Lyndon Johnson
Edwin Zimmerman	1968–1969
Richard W. McLaren	1969–1972	Richard Nixon
Walker B. Comegys	1972	acting
Thomas E. Kauper	1972–1976	Richard Nixon
Donald I. Baker	1976–1977	Gerald R. Ford
John H. Shenefield	1977–1979	Jimmy Carter
Sanford Litvack	1979–1981
William Baxter	1981–1983	Ronald Reagan
J. Paul McGrath	1983–1985
Douglas H. Ginsburg	1985–1986
Charles Rule	1986–1989
James F. Rill	1989–1992	George H.W. Bush
Charles James	1992	acting
J. Mark Gidley	1992–1993	acting
Anne Bingaman	1993–1996	Bill Clinton
Joel Klein	1996–2000
Douglas Melamed	2000–2001	acting
Charles James	2001–2003	George W. Bush
R. Hewitt Pate	2003–2005
Thomas O. Barnett	2005–2008
Deborah A. Garza	2008–2009	acting
Christine A. Varney	2009–2011	Barack Obama
Sharis Pozen	2011–2012	acting
Joseph F. Wayland	2012	acting
Renata Hesse	2012–2013	acting
William Baer	2013–2017	Barack Obama
Makan Delrahim	2017–2021	Donald J. Trump
Jonathan Kanter	2021–Present	Joe Biden

Civil Division

#	Name	Term began	Term ended	President(s) served under
1	Charles B. Rugg	1930	1933	Herbert Hoover
2	George Clinton Sweeney	1933	1935	Franklin D. Roosevelt
3	Angus D. MacLean	1935
4	James W. Morris	1935	1937
5	Sam E. Whitaker	1937	1939
6	Francis M. Shea	1939	1945
7	John F. Sonnett	1945	1947	Harry S. Truman
8	Peyton Ford	1947	1949
9	H. Graham Morison	1949	1951
10	Holmes Baldridge	1951	1953
11	Warren E. Burger	1953	1956	Dwight D. Eisenhower
12	George Cochran Doub	1953	1960
13	William H. Orrick Jr.	1961	1963	John F. Kennedy
14	John W. Douglas	1963	1966	John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson
15	Barefoot Sanders	1966	1967	Lyndon B. Johnson
16	Edwin L. Weisl Jr.	1967	1969
17	William Ruckelshaus	1969	1970	Richard Nixon
18	L. Patrick Gray	1970	1972
19	Harlington Wood Jr.	1972	1973
20	Carla Anderson Hills	1973	1975
21	Rex E. Lee	1975	1977	Gerald Ford
22	Barbara A. Babcock	1977	1979	Jimmy Carter
23	Alice Daniels	1979	1981
24	Paul J. McGrath	1981	1985	Ronald Reagan
25	Richard K. Willard	1985	1988
26	John Bolton	1988	1989
27	Stuart M. Gerson	1989	1993	George H. W. Bush
28	Frank W. Hunger	1993	1999	Bill Clinton
29	David W. Ogden	1999	2001
30	Robert McCallum Jr.	2001	2003	George W. Bush
31	Peter Keisler	2003	2007
32	Gregory G. Katsas	2008	2009
33	Tony West	2009	2012	Barack Obama
34	Stuart F. Delery	2012	2014
-	Benjamin C. Mizer (acting)	2014	2017
-	Chad Readler (acting)	2017	2018	Donald Trump
35	Jody Hunt	2018	2020
-	Ethan P. Davis (acting)	2020	2020
-	Jeffrey Clark (acting)	2020	2021
-	Brian Boynton (acting)	2021	2025	Joe Biden
Source: [2]

Civil Rights Division

Main article: United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division

• Harmeet Dhillon (2025-present)
• Kristen Clarke (2021–2025)
• Eric Dreiband (2018–2021)
• John M. Gore (Acting 2017–2018)
• Thomas E. Wheeler II (Acting 2017)
• Vanita Gupta (Acting, 2014–2017) ^[3]
• Molly J. Moran (Acting 2014)
• Jocelyn Samuels (Acting 2013–2014)
• Thomas Perez, (2009–2013)
• Grace Chung Becker (Acting 2008)
• Wan J. Kim, (2005–2007)
• R. Alexander Acosta (2003–2005)
• Bradley Schlozman (Acting 2003)
• Ralph F. Boyd Jr. (2001–2003)
• William R. Yeomans (Acting 2001)
• Bill Lann Lee (1997–2001)
• Deval Patrick, (1994–1997)
• James P. Turner (Acting 1993–94)
• John R. Dunne(1990–1993)
• James P. Turner (Acting 1989–1990)
• William C. Lucas (Acting 1988–1989)
• William Bradford Reynolds (1981–1988)
• Drew S. Days, III (1977–1980)
• J. Stanley Pottinger (1973–1977)
• David Luke Norman (1971–1973)
• Jerris Leonard (1969–1971)
• Stephen J. Pollak (1968–1969)
• John Michael Doar (1965 to 1967)
• Burke Marshall (1961–1964)
• Harold R. Tyler (1960–1961) ^[4]
• W. Wilson White (1957–1960) ^[5]

Criminal Division

Main article: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

• Kenneth Polite (2021–2023)
• Brian Benczkowski (2018–2020)
• Leslie Caldwell (2014–2017)
• Lanny Breuer (2009–2013)
• Alice Fisher (2005–2008)
• Christopher A. Wray (2003–2005)
• Michael Chertoff (2001–2003)
• James Robinson (1998–2001)
• Jo Ann Harris (1993–1995)
• Robert Mueller (1990–1993)
• Edward S.G. Dennis (1988–1990)
• William Weld (1986–1988)
• Stephen S. Trott (1983–1986)
• D. Lowell Jensen (1981–1983)
• Philip Heymann (1978–1981)
• Benjamin Civiletti (1977–1978)
• Dick Thornburgh (1975–1977)
• Henry E. Petersen (1972–1974)
• Will Wilson (1969–1971)
• Fred Vinson Jr. (1965–1969)
• Herbert Miller Jr. (1961–1965)
• Malcolm R. Wilkey (1959–1961)
• Malcolm Anderson (1958–1959)
• Warren Olney III (1953–1957)
• Charles B. Murray (1952–1953)
• James M. McInerney (1950–1952)
• Alexander M. Campbell (1948–1949)
• T. Vincent Quinn (1947–1948)
• Theron Caudle (1945–1947)
• Tom C. Clark (1943–1945)
• Wendell Berge (1940–1943)
• O. John Rogge (1939–1940)
• Brien McMahon (1936–1939)
• Joseph B. Keenan (1934–1936)
• Pat Malloy (1933)
• E. Nugent Dodds (1931–1933)
• Oscar R. Luhring (1925–1930)
• William J. Donovan (1924–1925)
• Earl J. Davis (1924)
• John Crim (1921–1923)
• Robert P. Stewart (1919–1921)

National Security Division

Name	President(s)	Announcement	Nomination sent to the Senate	Confirmation by the Senate	Sworn in	Left office
Kenneth L. Wainstein [6]	George W. Bush	March 13, 2006		September 21, 2006 [7]	September 28, 2006 [8]	March 30, 2008, to become Homeland Security Advisor (Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism) [9]
J. Patrick Rowan		June 19, 2008 [10]		September 26, 2008 [11] [12] [13]	October 3, 2008 [12]	January 20, 2009 [14]
David S. Kris	Barack Obama	January 22, 2009 [15]	February 11, 2009 [14]	March 25, 2009 [16]	–	–
Lisa Monaco		March 17, 2011 [17]		June 28, 2011 [18]	July 1, 2011 [19]	March 8, 2013
John Demers	Donald Trump, Joe Biden	September 2, 2017	September 5, 2017	February 15, 2018	February 22, 2018	June 21, 2021
Matthew G. Olsen	Joe Biden	May 26, 2021	May 27, 2021	October 28, 2021	November 1, 2021	January 20, 2025

Environment and Natural Resources Division

• Ernest Knaebel (1911–1916) ^[20]
• Ramsey Clark (1961–1965)
• Jeffrey Clark (2018–2021)
• Todd Kim (2021–2025)

Justice Management Division

• Jolene Ann Lauria

Tax Division

• Robert H. Jackson (1936–1938)
• Mabel Walker Willebrandt (1921–1929)

Office of Justice Programs

• Jimmy Gurulé (1990–1992)
• Laurie O. Robinson ^[21]

Office of Legal Counsel

Name	Years served	Appointed by	Notes
Angus D. MacLean	1933–1935	Franklin D. Roosevelt [22]
Golden W. Bell	1935–1939
Charles Fahy	1940–1941
Oscar S. Cox	1942–1943
Hugh B. Cox	1943–1945
Harold W. Judson	1945–1946
George T. Washington	1946–1949	Harry Truman
Abraham J. Harris	1950–1951
Joseph C. Duggan	1951–1952
J. Lee Rankin	1953–1956	Dwight Eisenhower	Became Solicitor General in 1956.
W. Wilson White	1957		After a short tenure, selected to be first head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
Malcolm R. Wilkey	1958–1959
Robert Kramer	1959–1961
Nicholas Katzenbach	1961–1962	John F. Kennedy
Norbert A. Schlei	1962–1966
Frank H. Wozencraft	1966–1969	Lyndon Johnson
William H. Rehnquist	1969–1971	Richard Nixon	Later nominated and confirmed as Associate, and subsequent Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ralph E. Erickson	1971–1972
Roger C. Cramton	1972–1973
Antonin Scalia	1974–1977	Gerald Ford	Later nominated and confirmed as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
John M. Harmon	1977–1981	Jimmy Carter [23]
Theodore B. Olson	1981–1984	Ronald Reagan	Later became U.S. Solicitor General.
Charles J. Cooper	1985–1988
Douglas Kmiec	1988–1989		Later U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Malta during the "Arab Spring" uprisings.
William P. Barr	1989–1990	George H. W. Bush
Michael Luttig	1990–1991
Timothy Flanigan	1991–1992
Walter Dellinger	1993–1994	Bill Clinton	Later became acting U.S. Solicitor General.
Beth Nolan	1995	acting [24]	Served as acting Assistant AG, OLC, while Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Nominated to become Assistant AG, OLC, but Senate did not vote on the nomination. Became White House Counsel in 1996.
Dawn Johnsen	1996–1998	acting
Randolph D. Moss	1998–2001	Bill Clinton	Served as acting AAG from 1998 to 2000; nominated November 9, 1999; Recess-appointed August 3, 2000; confirmed by United States Senate December 15, 2000
Jay S. Bybee	2001 – March 2003	George W. Bush	In charge when the OLC issued the Bybee memo and other Torture memos; appointed as a federal judge; started March 21, 2003
Jack Goldsmith	October 2003 – June 2004		Later Professor at Harvard Law School and author of The Terror Presidency (2007)
Daniel Levin	2004–2005	acting
Steven G. Bradbury	2005–2009	acting	Served as acting AAG 2005–2007 (nominated June 23, 2005; nomination approved by Senate Judiciary Committee but never voted on by full Senate), continued to function as senior appointed official in charge of OLC until January 20, 2009.
David J. Barron	2009–2010		Professor at Harvard Law School and served as Acting AAG from January 2009 to July 2010.
Jonathan G. Cedarbaum	2010–2011		Served as acting AAG, July–November 2010; continued to function as senior appointed official in charge of OLC until the end of January 2011.
Caroline D. Krass	2011		Senior appointed official leading OLC since the end of January 2011 until June 2011, when Virginia A. Seitz was confirmed.
Virginia A. Seitz	2011–2013	Barack Obama	Confirmed by the Senate in a voice vote on June 28, 2011. Resigned effective December 20, 2013. [25]
Karl R. Thompson	2014–2017	acting	Appointed Principal Deputy AAG on March 24, 2014. [26]
Curtis E. Gannon	2017		Appointed Principal Deputy AAG on January 20, 2017. [27]
Steven Engel	2017–2021	Donald Trump
Christopher H. Schroeder	2021–2023	Joe Biden
Benjamin C. Mizer	2023	acting
Gillian E. Metzger	2023–2024
Christopher Fonzone	2024–2025	Joe Biden
Henry C. Whitaker	2025-present	Donald Trump

Office of Legal Policy

• Viet D. Dinh (2001–2003)
• Daniel J. Bryant (2003–2005)
• Rachel Brand (2005–2007)
• Elisebeth C. Cook (2008–2009)
• Christopher H. Schroeder (2010–2012)
• Beth Ann Williams (2017–2020)
• Hampton Dellinger (2021–present)

Office of Legislative Affairs

• Carlos Uriarte (August 2022 - January 2025)
• Peter Hyun (November 2021 – August 2022; acting)
• Helaine Greenfeld (January 2021 – November 2021; acting}
• Stephen Boyd (August 2017 – January 2021)
• Peter J. Kadzik (June 2014 – January 2017)
• Judith C. Appelbaum (June 13, 2012–?)
• Ronald H. Weich (April 29, 2009 – April 25, 2012)
• Richard Hertling (2003–2007)
• Daniel J. Bryant (2001–2003)
• Robert Raben (1999–2001)
• Jon Jennings Acting (1998–1999)
• L. Anthony Sutin (1998)
• John R. Bolton (1985–1989)
• Robert A. McConnell (1981–1985)
• Patricia Wald (1977–1979)
• Michael Uhlmann (1975–1977) ^[28]
• Mitch McConnell (1975, acting)
• W. Vincent Rakestraw (March 3, 1974 – February 1, 1975) ^[28]
• Mike McKevitt (1973)

References

1. 28 U.S.C.   § 506
2. United States Department of Justice (November 8, 2013). "FEDERAL ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL". justice.gov.
3. "Attorney General Holder Announces Vanita Gupta to Serve as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division | OPA | Department of Justice". Justice.gov. October 15, 2014. Retrieved December 16, 2016.
4. "James P. Turner, Used and Abused: The Civil Rights Division, Washington Post, Sunday, December 14, 1997; Page C01".
5. "The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division: A Historical Perspective as the Division Nears 50, Remarks by Wan Kim, Mar. 22, 2006" (PDF).
6. "Presidential Nomination: Kenneth Leonard Wainstein". whitehouse.gov – via National Archives.
7. Wayback Machine
8. "#06-655: 09-28-06 Kenneth L. Wainstein Sworn in as First Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division". www.usdoj.gov.
9. "Ken Wainstein, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism". whitehouse.gov – via National Archives.
10. "Personnel Announcement". whitehouse.gov – via National Archives.
11. Statement Of Sen. Leahy On Nomination Of J. Patrick Rowan
12. "results.gov : Resources For The President's Team". whitehouse.gov – via National Archives.
13. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=110-s20080926-139 ^{[ dead link ‍]}
14. "Nomination Press Release – Assistant Attorney General – The White House". whitehouse.gov . February 11, 2009. Retrieved November 27, 2013– via National Archives.
15. Lichtblau, Eric (January 22, 2009). "Obama Picks Critic of Warrantless Wiretapping for Slot at Justice Dept". The New York Times.
16. "U.S. Senate: U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 111th Congress – 1st Session". www.senate.gov.
17. "Lisa Monaco Nominated To Lead DOJ National Security Division". The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
18. "3 Justice Dept. Nominees Are Confirmed". The New York Times. June 29, 2011.
19. "Meet the Assistant Attorney General". justice.gov.
20. "Ernest Knaebel". www.justice.gov. April 13, 2015. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
21. "Office of Justice Programs: Laurie O. Robinson, Acting Assistant Attorney General/Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General". Ojp.usdoj.gov. November 9, 2009. Archived from the original on July 1, 2013. Retrieved July 4, 2013.
22. Register, Department of Justice and the Courts of the United States, United States Government Printing Office (1972–1976), p. 131. "Office of Legal Counsel (Formerly Office of Assistant Solicitor General and Executive Adjudications Division," list of officeholders through 1973.
23. John M. Harmon bio Archived 2008-12-07 at the Wayback Machine , Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody.
24. "Nolan to Become 1st Female White House Counsel". Los Angeles Times. August 20, 1999. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
25. "National Law Journal". National Law Journal.
26. "Meet the Assistant Attorney General – OLC – Department of Justice". www.justice.gov. January 11, 2018.
27. "Meet the Leadership". justice.gov. United States Department of Justice. January 20, 2017. Retrieved June 4, 2017.
28. "White House Press Release" (PDF). Ford Library Museum . May 22, 1975.