Lanny Breuer

High-Profile Cases

Breuer joined the Clinton White House in 1997, and immediately found himself in the midst of controversies over Whitewater and Democratic fundraising during the 1996 elections. In fact, White House officials called him the backbone of the damage-control effort. Then-White House Counsel Charles Ruff said that Breuer would be "in charge of supervising the investigations team."

The biggest damage came from 1998 House hearings and the Senate impeachment trial into President Clinton's relations with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Shrewdly, Clinton's legal team developed a strategy that focused on winning the political battles as well as the trial. "We came in thinking the Senate trial was going to be rigged against us," Breuer said afterwards. "We were so concerned with what the public would think."

Breuer has handled some other high-profile legal cases. He defended former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who was accused of stealing classified documents from the National Archives and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor related to that charge; Ipulasi Sunia, who was accused of rigging government contracts while serving as American Samoa lieutenant governor; and Roger Clemens during the investigation into his steroid use and the subsequent investigation into allegations of perjury (Breuer was expected to recuse himself from the Clemens case as it proceeds).

Washingtonian Magazine called Breuer's defense of Berger "a case study in Washington lawyering." Justice Department officials told the magazine that when lawyers request a light sentence for their clients, they sometimes say "I want a Berger."

Corporate Clients

Corporate clients included Moody's Investor Service following the 2001 Enron collapse and Halliburton/KBR during a hearing in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. They were also ExxonMobil, the pharmaceutical lobby PhRMA and Cisco Systems. Breuer represented the University of California during the investigation into security breaches at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Freddie Mac in a 2008 congressional investigation of the financial crisis.

Registered Lobbyist

Breuer has worked as a registered lobbyist for a handful of high-profile corporate clients, including Yahoo!, which he represented as recently as 2008. He will have to comply with the Obama administration's lobbying regulations, which bar executive branch employees from working in the same area in which they lobbied for two years. Breuer earned $2.4 million in 2007 and 2008, and reported a net worth of nearly $8 million when he left Covington.

He is also vice-chair of Covington's Public Service Committee, which oversees all of the firm's pro bono work.

Sentencing

In April 2009, Breuer testified in front of Congress on behalf of the administration in support of sentencing guideline reform. Current standards dictate the same punishment for selling one gram of crack and 100 grams of cocaine.

Breuer argued that there is no sceintific reason for the disparity and argued that the guidelines unfairly punishes black defendents, who make up 82 percent of federal crack defendents. "We cannot ignore the mounting evidence that the current cocaine sentencing disparity is difficult to justify," he said. "We know of no other controlled substance where the penalty structure differs so dramatically because of the drug's form."

Show less