Robert Bauer
American lawyer
Robert F. Bauer (born February 22, 1952) is an American attorney who served as White House counsel under President Barack Obama.
Early life and education
Born in New York City into a Jewish family, Bauer graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1970. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 1973, and his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1976.
Career
Bauer was President Obama's personal attorney and the general counsel of the Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign. He has also previously served as the general counsel to the Democratic National Committee, and had advised President Obama since 2005.
As general counsel for the 2008 campaign, Bauer asked the Justice Department to investigate the officers and donors of American Issues Project after it ran a negative ad about Obama.
In November 2009, he was named to be the next White House counsel, upon the resignation of Gregory Craig.
On June 2, 2011, the White House Press Office stated that Bauer would be returning to private practice at Perkins Coie, and that principal deputy counsel to the President Kathryn Ruemmler (his deputy, in that office since January 2010 and before that since January 2009 as principal associate deputy U.S. attorney general) would succeed him. The position, because it is part of the Executive Office staff that personally advises the president and is not an agency or Cabinet department or military head, does not require Senate confirmation despite the prominence of the office.
Bauer returned to private practice to again represent the president's election team and the Democratic National Committee.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Robert Bauer” is american lawyer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Robert, Bauer and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “american lawyer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7341941. VIAF identifies the subject as 40721336. The Library of Congress control number is n82085198. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1970, 1973 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Bauer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.