Philip Benjamin Heymann (October 30, 1932 – November 30, 2021) was an American legal scholar and federal prosecutor who headed the Criminal Division of the Justice Department as Assistant Attorney General during the Carter administration and was briefly Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration before he resigned over management and policy differences as well as perceived interference by the White House.

Even before the September 11 attacks, Heymann studied and published on how prosecution of antiterror policies can be done consistent with the rule of law in a democratic society.

[b] Heymann left the Solicitor General's office shortly after President Johnson accepted Cox's pro forma resignation at the end of the court's term in 1965.

In September 1965 he became deputy in the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs of the State Department and was appointed acting administrator in March 1966.

[10][11] Right before his appointment he issued a reprimand to the head of the Passport Office for asking the U.S. embassies in Paris and Moscow to report on the activities of Harvard history professor and anti-nuclear activist H. Stuart Hughes.

[17] In 1968 Heymann helped Katzenbach force a reluctant State Department bureaucracy to finally undertake a review of the denial of security clearance of John Paton Davies, one of the China Hands whose security clearance was revoked 14 years before by then Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who made the decision under pressure of Joseph McCarthy's allegations.

[d] At the beginning of his academic career Heymann worked to introduce law students to some of the methods taught in the Kennedy School for creating and managing institutions.

Heymann joined Cox and most of the Law School faculty, for instance, in an open letter to Congress, urging an end to the Vietnam war at the height of student unrest following the Kent State shootings.

[e] Heymann collaborated with Cox in drafting the amicus curiae brief to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on behalf of the American Mutual Assurance Alliance and the American Insurance Association, in support of the constitutionality of Massachusetts's No-fault insurance scheme, a piece of legislation with a decided Harvard connection.

[27] The first task of the three lawyers was to prevent the resignation of the three assistant United States Attorneys who had prosecuted the Watergate burglars, who had threatened to quit in a pique because Cox had not consulted with them before appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain how he planned to proceed.

[29] The next major challenge was to ensure that whoever was indicted would receive a fair trial and prevent premature disclosure of evidence that might compromise the criminal cases.

In that regard the Senate Watergate Committee proved a challenge because they were about to televise a hearing with Nixon counsel John Dean.

In a court room packed with reporters Heymann gingerly made the argument, mainly to show that the Special Counsel was concerned with the due process rights of the defendants and not to prevent the public from hearing the evidence.

At one point Heymann said, "I want to be careful not to overargue my case ..." Judge John Sirica tersely replied: "No chance of that, young man.

[32] Heymann spent the rest of the summer working as Associate Special Counsel, returning to Cambridge to teach in the fall.

Heymann compiled the National Football League report on the sexual harassment of female sportswriter Lisa Olson.