Former US Attorney General and two-time governor of Pennsylvania Richard Thornburgh died Thursday at the age of 88, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
After serving as a US Attorney, Thornburgh reached the national attention for his handling of the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
A moderate Republican, he took over as the US Attorney General during the administration of Ronald Reagan, after Edwin Meese became embroiled in a number of scandals relating to expecting the US Department of Justice to stop investigations into his personal business dealings.
Thornburgh served into the Administration of George HW Bush, but was replaced by William Barr, who would go on to serve in the Trump Administration.
After his political career, Thornburgh re-entered private practice and was widely seen as an expert, unbiased investigator. He was asked by CBS to investigate Dan Rather’s use of a counterfeit copy of a military report regarding George W. Bush’s service, and he pursued a parallel investigation into the Penn State child abuse scandal.
Thornburgh’s first wife, with whom he had three children, was killed in a car accident in 1960, an incident that left his youngest son with severe brain damage. He later remarried and had another son. His wife Ginny and his four sons survive him.