William G. Otis

Who is William G. Otis?

William "Bill" G. Otis is a law professor and former federal prosecutor who served as Special Counsel to President George H. W. Bush.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina and Stanford Law School, Otis is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He also contributes to the legal blog Crime and Consequences.

In 2007, Otis wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post urging President George W. Bush to commute the prison sentence imposed on Scooter Libby, who had been sentenced to 30 months in prison, a $250,000 fine, and two years of probation for his role in the aftermath of the Valerie Plame affair. Approximately one month after Otis's piece appeared, Bush commuted Libby's prison sentence, while leaving the rest of the sentence intact.

Otis spent much of his career as head of the Appellate Division of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. For ten years, he was a member of the Attorney General's Advisory Subcommittee on the Sentencing Guidelines. In 1992, during the investigation into "Iraqgate," he served as Special Counsel for President George H. W. Bush. He returned to the U.S. Attorney's Office the next year, and ended his tenure there in 1999. He returned to federal service three years later as Special Assistant to the Secretary of Energy. In 2003, he was appointed Counselor to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, where he remained until 2007.