Harold S. Sawyer

Harold Samuel "Hal" Sawyer (March 21, 1920 – April 3, 2003) was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.

Sawyer was born in San Francisco, California, and attended the public schools of the San Francisco Bay area. He graduated from Marin Junior College (now the College of Marin), Kentfield, California and from the University of California, Berkeley in 1940. He earned a J.D. from the Hastings College of Law at the University of California, San Francisco in 1943. He served in the United States Navy during World War II, after which he settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan and established a successful private law practice.

From 1968 to 1976, Sawyer was a member of the Michigan Law Revision Commission. From 1975 to 1976, he was prosecuting attorney for Kent County. In 1976, Sawyer defeated incumbent Democrat Richard Vander Veen to reclaim Michigan's 5th congressional district for the Republicans. The seat had been held by Gerald R. Ford until he was appointed to become Vice President of the United States. Sawyer was elected to the Ninety-fifth and to the three succeeding Congresses, serving from January 3, 1977 to January 3, 1985. He was not a candidate for reelection to the Ninety-ninth Congress in 1984.

Sawyer served on the House Select Committee on Assassinations investigating the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. Sawyer was one of four members who dissented from the Committee's finding that Dictabelt evidence suggested that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy." Responding to a question asking how he would handle the Committee's report if he were at the Justice Department, he replied: "I'd file it in a circular file." Sawyer stated that the conclusions in both cases were based on "supposition upon supposition upon supposition".

In 2003, Sawyer died of throat cancer at his home in Algoma Township. He is interred in Rockford Cemetery, in Rockford, Michigan.