William Hedgcock Webster (born March 6, 1924) is an American retired attorney and jurist who most recently served as chair of the Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2005 until 2020.

[8] Webster was nominated by President Nixon on June 13, 1973, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated by Judge Marion Charles Matthes.

[10][11] Webster was portrayed by actor Sean Cullen in Season 2 of the Netflix show Mindhunter, which took place during his tenure as director of the FBI.

Since then, Webster has practiced law at the Washington, D.C., office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, where he specializes in arbitration, mediation and internal investigation.

Washington University granted him the Alumni Citation for contributions to the field of law in 1972 and in 1981 he received the William Greenleaf Eliot Award.

[19] He received the William J. Donovan Award from The OSS Society in 2005 and serves as an honorary chairman of this organization.

Additionally, he served as chairman of the Corporation, Banking and Business Law Section of the American Bar Association.

In 2009, he was named to head an independent investigation of the FBI's actions surrounding the Fort Hood shooting.

Over multiple phone calls, Keniel Aeon Thomas of Jamaica told Webster and Clugston that he would set their house ablaze or have a sniper shoot them in the back of the head if they did not pay him thousands of dollars, according to prosecutors' filings.

[25] On March 3, 2002, the University of California, Santa Barbara, held a debate titled "National Security vs.

The guest speakers were Webster and American Civil Liberties Union President Nadine Strossen.