John William Warner III (February 18, 1927 – May 25, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974 and as a five-term Republican U.S.

After leaving the Senate, he worked for the law firm of Hogan Lovells, where he had previously been employed before joining the United States Department of Defense as the Under Secretary of the Navy during the presidency of Richard Nixon in 1969.

Despite the publicity of being Elizabeth Taylor's husband and the large amounts of money Warner used in his campaign for the nomination, he finished second at the state Republican Party (GOP) convention to the far more conservative politician Richard D. Obenshain.

In contrast, Obenshain was a noted anti-Soviet, a hardline anti-communist, and an opponent of other liberal policies including the Great Society and much of the Civil Rights Movement.

As the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he protected and increased the flow of billions of dollars into the Virginia economy each year via the state's military installations and shipbuilding firms which served his reelection efforts in every cycle.

[13] On June 15, 2004, Warner was among the minority of his party to vote to expand hate crime laws to include sexual orientation as a protected category.

[15] In the 1996 United States Presidential election, Warner served as a Senate teller (along with Democrat Wendell H. Ford) of electoral votes.

[16] Warner was among ten GOP Senators who voted against the charge of perjury during Clinton's impeachment (the others were Richard Shelby of Alabama, Ted Stevens of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Olympia Snowe of Maine, John Chafee of Rhode Island, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, Slade Gorton of Washington, and Fred Thompson of Tennessee).

As was the case in 1990, Warner faced no Democratic opposition in 2002, winning re-election to a fifth term in the Senate by a landslide over Independent candidate Jacob Hornberger.

[17] On May 23, 2005, Warner was one of 14 centrist senators, dubbed the "Gang of 14," to forge a compromise on the Democrats' proposed use of the judicial filibuster, thus blocking the Republican leadership's attempt to implement the so-called nuclear option.

He feared that the administration's civilian lawyers and a president who never saw combat were putting U.S. service personnel at risk of torture, summary executions and other atrocities by chipping away at Geneva Conventions’ standards that have protected them since 1949.

Following the Supreme Court ruling on Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which was adverse to the Bush Administration, Warner (with Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain) negotiated with the White House the language of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, suspending habeas corpus provisions for anyone deemed by the Executive Branch an "unlawful combatant" and barring them from challenging their detentions in court.

[18] Warner's "compromise" (approved by a Republican majority) authorized the President to establish permissible interrogation methods and to "interpret the meaning and application" of international Geneva Convention standards, so long as the coercion falls short of "serious" bodily or psychological injury.

[19] Warner maintained that the new law holds true to "core principles" that the U.S. provide fair trials and not be seen as undermining Geneva Conventions.

"[24] On August 23, 2007, he called on President Bush to begin bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq by Christmas in order to make it clear to the Iraqi leadership that the U.S. commitment is not indefinite.

The group pushed for a bill that would encourage state-by-state decisions on offshore drilling and authorize billions of dollars for conservation and alternative energy.

[44][45] On February 19, 2009, the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., announced that Queen Elizabeth II would name John Warner an honorary Knight Commander for his work strengthening the American-British military alliance.

[47] The annual Senator John W. Warner Award is given to a third year undergraduate student at the University of Virginia who exhibits a serious, convincing ambition to seek future election to public office.

[51] Warner was the sixth husband of actress Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married in December 1976, at the Second Presbyterian Church in Richmond, Virginia, before he was elected to the Senate.

President Joe Biden, Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, and Admiral Michael Mullen were among those who spoke at the funeral.