UM Law School Grad Named General Counsel For the FBI

James A. Baker

A University of Michigan Law School grad will have the ear of the FBI director when it comes to the bureau's policies.

FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday announced the appointment of James A. Baker as general counsel for the bureau at  D.C. headquarters.

Baker clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Bernard A. Friedman in Detroit before joining  the Justice Department's   Criminal Division through the Attorney General’s Honors Program in 1990. He worked as a federal prosecutor with the division’s Fraud Section.

In 1996, he joined the former Office of Intelligence Policy and Review (OIPR), which later became part of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

An FBI press release stated: 

From 2001 to 2007, Mr. Baker served as counsel for intelligence policy and head of OIPR. In this position, he developed, coordinated, and implemented national security policy with regard to intelligence and counterintelligence matters for the department. Moreover, he provided the attorney general, the U.S. intelligence community, and the White House with legal and policy advice on a range of national security issues and conducted oversight of the intelligence community, including the FBI, on behalf of the attorney general.

Back in 2006, Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post reported  that in 2004 Baker discovered "the government's failure to share information about its spying program had rendered useless a federal screening system that the judges had insisted upon to shield the court from tainted information. He alerted (U.S. District Judge Colleen)  Kollar-Kotelly, who complained to Justice, prompting a temporary suspension of the NSA spying program."

From 2008 to 2009, Baker was assistant general counsel for national security at Verizon Business. He then returned to the Justice Department and from 2009 to 2011, and served as an associate deputy attorney general. He worked on a range of national security issues, including cyber security, according to a press release from the FBI.

He last worked as associate general counsel for  Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds based in Connecticut.

“Jim’s experience as a career prosecutor and as a national security official, as well his experience in the private sector, make him an excellent fit for his new position here at the FBI,” FBI Director  Comey said in a statement.