James R. McHenry III is an American lawyer who is the chief administrative hearing officer in the United States Department of Justice.
[1] He served as the acting U.S. attorney general from January 20 to February 5, 2025.
[2][4] He started at the U.S. Department of Justice in 2003, serving as a judicial law clerk and later attorney advisor at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
He then was a senior lawyer in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and served a detail as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Criminal Division in the Northern District of Georgia.
[2] During the first Trump administration, McHenry was director of EOIR, first on an acting basis starting in 2017, and then permanently the following year.