Steven G. Bradbury

Steven Gill Bradbury
Bradbury in 2013
Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel
In office February 2005 – 20 January 2009
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Daniel Levin (acting)
Succeeded by	David J. Barron
Personal details
Born	1958 (age 58–59) Portland, Oregon
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	Stanford University (B.A.), University of Michigan Law School (J.D.)
Occupation	Lawyer
Known for	Providing legal authorization for abusive treatment of detainees

Steven Gill Bradbury is an American lawyer who served as Acting Assistant Attorney General from 2005-2009, heading the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the U.S. Department of Justice during President George W. Bush's second term. During his tenure in OLC, he authored a number of significant classified legal opinions authorizing the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques", which are frequently described as torture. Bradbury was nominated to be the Assistant Attorney General for OLC but individual Democratic Senators put holds on his nomination, preventing the full Senate from voting on it, and Democratic leaders in the Senate instituted pro forma sessions of the Senate during scheduled recesses to prevent the President from giving him a recess appointment. Bradbury continued to serve as the acting chief of OLC until the end of the Bush Administration on January 20, 2009. He is currently a partner at the Washington, D.C office of Dechert LLP.

Bradbury was born in 1958 in Portland, Oregon, the youngest of four children. His father, Edward T. Bradbury, died when he was 11 months old, and his mother raised him by working nights and taking in laundry to supplement their Social Security income. He grew up in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Portland, where he attended Washington High School from 1972 to 1976 where he was student body president his senior year. Bradbury was the first in his family to graduate from college, earning a B.A. from Stanford University in 1980 with a major in English.