Lanny Arthur Breuer (born August 5, 1958) is an American criminal defense lawyer who currently serves as vice chair of Covington & Burling LLP. From 2009 to 2013, he served as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice under President Barack Obama. From 1997 to 1999, he served as Special Counsel to President Bill Clinton. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Early life and education
Breuer grew up in Elmhurst, Queens, where he attended Newtown High School. Breuer's parents were both Holocaust refugees; his father from Austria and his mother from Germany. His mother's parents were both murdered in the Holocaust. Breuer's father, a journalist in Vienna, came to America after fleeing to England. In the United States, Breuer's father was the music editor of Aufbau, a German language newspaper in New York. Breuer graduated from Columbia College in 1980, and Columbia Law School in 1985.
Career
Early career
After graduating from Columbia Law School, Breuer was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan from 1985 to 1989. Asked how his mother reacted to his decision to become a junior D.A. after an expensive Columbia education, he recalled:
My parents just never made any money at all. I called up my mother to break the news that her son was not going to a law firm: "Mom, you've just got to remember that Cy Vance Jr. - who, of course, is now the D.A. — he's in the D.A.'s office. And Dan Rather Jr., he's in the D.A.'s office. And Andrew Cuomo, the son of the governor, he's in the D.A.'s office." There was a long pause. And my mother said: "Them? They should go to the D.A.'s office. You? You should go to a firm." In fact, some 20 years later, his former boss, the legendary Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau, would still remember Breuer as "a poor Jewish kid from Queens."
As an assistant district attorney, he prosecuted violent crime, such as armed robbery and gang violence, white collar crime, and other offenses.
From 1989 until 1997, Breuer practiced law with the law firm of Covington & Burling LLP in Washington, D.C. In this period, he represented U.S. Marine Sergeant Justin Elzie, one of the first U.S. service members to challenge his dismissal from the military for revealing that he was gay. He also received attention for defending Corey Moore in a first-degree murder trial.
White House Counsel's Office
In 1997, Breuer joined the White House Counsel's Office as special counsel to President Bill Clinton, working under counsel to the president Charles F.C. Ruff. As special counsel, Breuer defended the White House and President Clinton in the congressional and Justice Department investigations of the Clinton campaign's fundraising.
He also defended the White House and President Clinton in the various independent counsel investigations, including Ken Starr's Lewinsky investigation. During the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, he defended the President in the impeachment hearings in the House and the impeachment trial in the Senate.
Private practice
Prior to becoming assistant attorney general, Breuer was a partner in the Washington law firm of Covington & Burling LLP and the co-chairman of its white-collar defense and investigations practice group. Breuer was best known for his work representing the subjects of congressional investigations. He represented the University of California in an investigation of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Moody's Investor Service in the wake of Enron's collapse, Halliburton/KBR in a hearing conducted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Roger Clemens, Yahoo!, and the Special Litigation Committee of the Board of Directors of Hewlett Packard.
Breuer made headlines when a former colleague from the White House, Sandy Berger, asked for representation after an investigation disclosed Berger's theft of classified documents from the National Archives.
Assistant attorney general
On January 22, 2009, President Obama selected Breuer to head the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. He was confirmed by the Senate on April 20, 2009, by a vote of 88–0. He immediately began recruiting elite lawyers from corporate firms, they later became known as the Breu Crew, in hopes of finding those responsible for culpable actions which eventually contributed to the financial crisis of 2008. The crackdown never took place.