Partner, Barr & Klein PLLC
Steve Klein, a partner at Barr & Klein PLLC, is an experienced free speech attorney who has successfully fought for the First Amendment rights of his clients against local, state and federal regulators. As a lobbyist, Steve’s advocacy has led to the successful amendment of state laws to respect political engagement and prevented the enactment of laws that burden it. Steve has published articles in several legal journals, and his commentary has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The Detroit News, and other outlets. Steve earned a bachelors degree in politics at Hillsdale College and a law degree from Ave Maria School of Law, where he served as Managing Editor of the Ave Maria Law Review. He is licensed to practice law in the District of Columbia, Illinois and Michigan.
Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution
Jonathan Rauch, a contributing editor of National Journal and The Atlantic, is the author of several books and many articles on public policy, culture, and economics. He is winner of the 2005 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary and the 2010 National Headliner Award for magazine columns.
His latest book is Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America, published in 2004 by Times Books (Henry Holt). It makes the case that same-sex marriage would benefit not only gay people but society and the institution of marriage itself. Although much of his writing has been on public policy, he has also written on topics as widely varied as adultery, agriculture, economics, gay marriage, height discrimination, biological rhythms, number inflation, and animal rights.
His multiple-award-winning column, “Social Studies,” was published in National Journal (a Washington-based weekly on government, politics, and public policy) from 1998 to 2010, and his features appeared regularly both there and in The Atlantic. Among the many other publications for which he has written are The New Republic, The Economist, Reason, Harper’s, Fortune, Reader’s Digest, U.S. News & World Report, The New York Times newspaper and magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, Slate, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Public Interest, The Advocate, The Daily, and others.
Mr. Rauch was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, and graduated in 1982 from Yale University. He went on to become a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina before moving to Washington in 1984. From 1984-89 he covered fiscal and economic policy for National Journal. In 1990 he spent six months in Japan as a fellow of the Japan Society Leadership Program, and in 1996 he was awarded the Premio Napoli alla Stampa Estera for his coverage, in The Economist, of the European Parliament. His articles appear in The Best American Magazine Writing 2005 and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004 and 2007. In 2011 he won the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association prize for excellence in opinion writing. He has also won two second-place prizes (2000 and 2001) in the National Headliner Awards. He has appeared as a guest on many television and radio programs.
Senior Legal Fellow, Pacific Legal Foundation
Steve Davis is a Senior Legal Fellow in Pacific Legal Foundation’s Constitutional Scholarship group and chair's the Federalist Society's Property Rights Practice Group Executive Committee. Steve’s work at PLF focuses on the study of the U.S. Constitution’s protection of property rights, and he plans and conducts Pacific Legal Foundation-sponsored conferences, symposia, and academic workshops on property rights issues and the Constitution. He enjoys pursuing constitutional scholarship research, writing, and speaking and is a frequent speaker at law and history seminars.
Prior to joining PLF, Steve litigated all stages of property rights cases in federal trial and appellate courts in private practice at large and small law firms. He filed property rights claims on behalf of hundreds of private property owners who own land in over a dozen states against the federal government, litigating those claims through trial and appeal. He also maintained a robust amicus-party practice in the U.S. Supreme Court, filing briefs on behalf of many legal scholars and public-interest groups.
Beginning in 2006, Steve served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, litigating civil rights, constitutional tort, tort, and employment discrimination claims in federal district court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Following law school, Steve began his legal career pursing his passion for public policy and the legislative process in the Missouri legislature, where he served first as chief of staff to the minority leader of the Missouri House of Representatives and then was twice elected by the members of the House as the House’s 62nd Chief Clerk and Administrator.
Retired
Tom Gede retired in 2023 as a principal in Morgan Lewis Consulting LLC and of counsel to the firm. He currently consults on a variety of legal and policy matters for both public and private clients. Tom has a national reputation and distinguished background in federal Indian law. Prior to retirement, he represented clients in complex governmental matters in litigation, administrative and regulatory proceedings, including high-profile matters involving state governments. A former senior deputy in the California Attorney General’s office, Tom was amicus coordinator and Supreme Court counsel, and argued cases in the US Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court, and numerous state and federal appellate courts.
Tom also served as executive director of the Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), coordinating activities on key legal and policy issues, such as federal Indian law, energy, environmental, public lands, financial services, and telecommunications, for the attorneys general of 18 western states and territories. In 2016, Tom was elected as a Member of the American Law Institute (ALI), and served as an Adviser on the Restatement of the Law Third - The Law of American Indians. Tom also taught federal Indian law as an adjunct law professor at the University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law. He served as an assistant editor for and the author of the Indian gaming chapter in CWAG’s American Indian Law Deskbook (2d & 3d eds.). He has been engaged in Indian gaming and Indian law matters for more than three decades, having focused on the gaming compacts with Indian tribes, as well as complex civil and criminal jurisdiction, land, natural resources, water and law enforcement issues in Indian country. He has testified before Congress on American Indian and Native Alaskan issues. In 2012 he was appointed by Speaker John Boehner to serve on the United States Indian Law and Order Commission, where he examined criminal justice issues in Indian country and Alaska, resulting in the issuance of an important report to the President and Congress.
Chairman, Center for Equal Opportunity
Linda Chavez is Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She has published opinions and columns in newspapers across the country and appears regularly on cable news. Chavez is the author of the three books: Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal, and Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics. She has been honored by the Library of Congress as a "Living Legend" and as nominee for Secretary of Labor by President George W. Bush.
Chavez has held many appointed positions and has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. Among her appointed positions has been Chairman, National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992); White House Director of Public Liaison (1985); Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1985); and member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984-1986). Chavez was also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland in 1986 and was elected by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.
Chavez earned her BA from the University of Colorado.
Co-chairman, Team America PAC, and President, Rocky Mountain Foundation
Tom Tancredo represented Colorado's 6th Congressional District from 1999 until 2009 where he chaired the 100+ member bipartisan Immigration Reform Caucus. He currently serves as co-chairman of Team America PAC and president of the Rocky Mountain Foundation. He authored "In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security".
George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
John O. McGinnis is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He also has an MA degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in philosophy and theology. Professor McGinnis clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. From 1987 to 1991, he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. He is the author of Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Government Through Technology (Princeton 2013) and Originalism and the Good Constitution (Harvard 2013) (with M. Rappaport). He is a past winner of the Paul Bator award given by the Federalist Society to an outstanding academic under 40. He has been listed by the United States on the roster of panelists who may be called upon to decide World Trade Organization Disputes.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Anthony Johnstone serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Judge Johnstone previously served as the Helen and David Mason Professor of Law and an affiliated Professor of Public Administration at the University of Montana, Alexander Blewett III School of Law in Missoula since 2011. As a professor he taught federal and state constitutional law and legislation, as well as a federal judicial clinic. Johnstone also has served as trial and appellate counsel in federal and state courts, including the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States, most recently with Johnstone PLLC. He served the Montana Department of Justice as state solicitor from 2008 to 2011 and assistant attorney general from 2004 to 2008. Johnstone entered practice as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York from 2000 to 2003. Born to Montanans in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Johnstone received his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1995 and his Juris Doctor, with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following law school, he clerked for Ninth Circuit Judge Sidney R. Thomas in Billings, Montana from 1999 to 2000.
President & CEO, National Constitution Center
Jeffrey Rosen is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization whose mission is to educate the public about the U.S. Constitution. Located steps from Independence Hall in Historic Philadelphia, the Center engages millions of citizens as an interactive museum, national town hall, and provider of nonpartisan resources for civic education. Rosen became President and CEO in 2013 and has developed the Center’s acclaimed Interactive Constitution, which brings together the top conservative and liberal legal scholars in America to discuss areas of agreement and disagreement about every clause of the Constitution. The online resource has received more than 15 million hits since launching in 2015.
Rosen is also professor at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. He is a highly regarded journalist whose essays and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, on National Public Radio, in the New Republic, where he was the legal affairs editor, and The New Yorker, where he was a staff writer. The Chicago Tribune named him one of the 10 best magazine journalists in America and a reviewer for the Los Angeles Timescalled him “the nation’s most widely read and influential legal commentator.”
Rosen is the author of six books including, most recently, a biography of William Howard Taft, published as part of the American Presidents Series. His other books include Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet; The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries that Defined America; The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America; The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age; and The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America. He is co-editor of Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change.
Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School.
Senior Fellow, National Review
Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. During is 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. He is a columnist for The Hill, and his essays and book reviews appear frequently at The New Criterion. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion (Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).
Senior Fellow, National Review
Bestselling author Andrew C. McCarthy is a contributing editor at National Review, a senior fellow at National Review Institute, and a Fox News contributor. He is a former Chief Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York and led the terrorism prosecution against the “Blind Sheikh” (Omar Abdel Rahman) and eleven other jihadists for conducting a war of urban terrorism against the United States that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. During is 20-year career as a prosecutor, he received numerous honors, including the Justice Department’s highest awards. Andy speaks and writes widely on law and national security, radical Islam, politics, and culture. He has testified before Congress as an expert on issues of constitutional law, counterterrorism, and law-enforcement. He is a columnist for The Hill, and his essays and book reviews appear frequently at The New Criterion. His most recent New York Times bestselling book is Ball of Collusion (Encounter Books, 2019), about the Russiagate controversy (an updated version was published in 2020). His other books include Willful Blindness (2008), The Grand Jihad (2010), Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (2012), and Faithless Execution (2014). He has also written several pamphlets in the Broadside series published by Encounter Books, most recently Islam and Free Speech (2015).
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Stewart Baker is a partner in the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. From 2005 to 2009, he was the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security. His law practice covers cybersecurity, data protection, homeland security, and travel and foreign investment regulation; he has been awarded one patent.
Mr. Baker has been General Counsel of the National Security Agency and General Counsel of the commission that investigated WMD intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war. He is the author of Skating on Stilts, a book on terrorism, cybersecurity, and other technology issues; he also hosts the weekly Cyberlaw Podcast.
Associate Professor of Law, Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School
Eric Talbot Jensen teaches and writes in the areas of Public International Law, Criminal Law, The Law of Armed Conflict, International Criminal Law, and National Security Law. His recent scholarship has appeared in the Texas, Temple, Houston, and Israel Law Reviews, as well as the Stanford Law and Policy Review, Virginia Journal of International Law, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, and Stanford Journal of International Law. Professor Jensen is a co-author on an Oxford University text analyzing application of the laws of war to the war on terror and is also co-authoring a law school casebook on the Law of Armed Conflict for Aspen Publishing.
Prior to joining the BYU law faculty in 2011, Professor Jensen spent 2 years teaching at Fordham Law School in New York City and 20 years in the United States Army as both a Cavalry Officer and as a Judge Advocate. During his time as a Judge Advocate, Professor Jensen served in various positions including as the Chief of the Army’s International Law Branch; Deputy Legal Advisor for Task Force Baghdad; Professor of International and Operational Law at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School; legal advisor to the US contingent of UN Forces deployed to Skopje, Macedonia as part of UNPREDEP; and legal advisor in Bosnia in support of Operation Joint Endeavor/Guard.
Director of the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security a, Georgetown University
Professor Catherine Lotrionte is the Director of the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security and Visiting Assistant Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Professor Lotrionte teaches courses on national security law, U.S. intelligence law, and international law. In addition to teaching, Professor Lotrionte coordinates research projects and events for the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security at Georgetown. She is the Institute Liaison for the Program on Nonproliferation Policy and Law, funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in cooperation with the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Professor Lotrionte is also the Director of the CyberProject. Professor Lotrionte and the Institute focus on the role of international and domestic law in recent and upcoming developments in cyber technology and cyber threats.
In 2002 she was appointed by General Brent Scowcroft to be Counsel to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board at the White House, a position she held until 2006. In 2002 she served as a legal counsel for the Joint Inquiry Committee of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Prior to that, Professor Lotrionte was Assistant General Counsel with the Office of General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she provided legal advice relating to information warfare, foreign intelligence and counterintelligence activities, and international terrorism. Before working in the Office of General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, Professor Lotrionte served in the U.S. Department of Justice.
Professor Lotrionte earned her Ph.D. from Georgetown University and her J.D. from New York University and is the author of numerous publications, including a forthcoming book concerning U.S. national security law in the post-Cold War era. She is a frequent speaker at cyber conferences held by academic, military, government, and media organizations. She is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Partner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
Stewart Baker is a partner in the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. From 2005 to 2009, he was the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security. His law practice covers cybersecurity, data protection, homeland security, and travel and foreign investment regulation; he has been awarded one patent.
Mr. Baker has been General Counsel of the National Security Agency and General Counsel of the commission that investigated WMD intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war. He is the author of Skating on Stilts, a book on terrorism, cybersecurity, and other technology issues; he also hosts the weekly Cyberlaw Podcast.
Associate Professor of Law, Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School
Eric Talbot Jensen teaches and writes in the areas of Public International Law, Criminal Law, The Law of Armed Conflict, International Criminal Law, and National Security Law. His recent scholarship has appeared in the Texas, Temple, Houston, and Israel Law Reviews, as well as the Stanford Law and Policy Review, Virginia Journal of International Law, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, and Stanford Journal of International Law. Professor Jensen is a co-author on an Oxford University text analyzing application of the laws of war to the war on terror and is also co-authoring a law school casebook on the Law of Armed Conflict for Aspen Publishing.
Prior to joining the BYU law faculty in 2011, Professor Jensen spent 2 years teaching at Fordham Law School in New York City and 20 years in the United States Army as both a Cavalry Officer and as a Judge Advocate. During his time as a Judge Advocate, Professor Jensen served in various positions including as the Chief of the Army’s International Law Branch; Deputy Legal Advisor for Task Force Baghdad; Professor of International and Operational Law at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School; legal advisor to the US contingent of UN Forces deployed to Skopje, Macedonia as part of UNPREDEP; and legal advisor in Bosnia in support of Operation Joint Endeavor/Guard.
Director of the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security a, Georgetown University
Professor Catherine Lotrionte is the Director of the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security and Visiting Assistant Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Professor Lotrionte teaches courses on national security law, U.S. intelligence law, and international law. In addition to teaching, Professor Lotrionte coordinates research projects and events for the Institute for Law, Science and Global Security at Georgetown. She is the Institute Liaison for the Program on Nonproliferation Policy and Law, funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, in cooperation with the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Professor Lotrionte is also the Director of the CyberProject. Professor Lotrionte and the Institute focus on the role of international and domestic law in recent and upcoming developments in cyber technology and cyber threats.
In 2002 she was appointed by General Brent Scowcroft to be Counsel to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board at the White House, a position she held until 2006. In 2002 she served as a legal counsel for the Joint Inquiry Committee of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Prior to that, Professor Lotrionte was Assistant General Counsel with the Office of General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she provided legal advice relating to information warfare, foreign intelligence and counterintelligence activities, and international terrorism. Before working in the Office of General Counsel at the Central Intelligence Agency, Professor Lotrionte served in the U.S. Department of Justice.
Professor Lotrionte earned her Ph.D. from Georgetown University and her J.D. from New York University and is the author of numerous publications, including a forthcoming book concerning U.S. national security law in the post-Cold War era. She is a frequent speaker at cyber conferences held by academic, military, government, and media organizations. She is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Professor Emeritus of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jeremy A. Rabkin is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was for over two decades a professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Professor Rabkin serves on the board of directors of the Center for Individual Rights, a public interest law firm based in Washington, D.C. Previously he was a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the board of academic advisors of the American Enterprise Institute.
Professor Rabkin’s books include Law Without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005). He authored “If You Need a Friend, Don’t Call a Cosmopolitan,” a chapter in Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (Sigal R. Ben-Porath & Rogers M. Smith eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). His articles have appeared in major law reviews and political science journals and his journalistic contributions in a range of magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Managing Director, Beacon Global Strategies LLC
From 2011-2013, Mr. Allen served as the Majority Staff Director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Under Chairman Mike Rogers’ (R-MI) direction, the HPSCI restored the process of an annual intelligence authorization bill to fund and give direction to the seventeen elements of the intelligence community, enacting measures for fiscal years 2011, 2012, and 2013. The HPSCI also led the House of Representatives’ consideration of cyber security legislation, passing the Cyber Information Sharing Protection Act (CISPA) with bipartisan majorities in 2012 and 2013.
Prior to joining the HPSCI, he was director for the Bipartisan Policy Center’s successor to the 9/11 Commission, the National Security Preparedness Group, co-chaired by former Congressman Lee Hamilton and former Governor Tom Kean.
Previously, Mr. Allen served in the White House for seven years in a variety of national security policy and legislative roles. At the National Security Council (NSC), he served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counter-proliferation Strategy from June 2007 to January 2009 under National Security Advisor Steve Hadley. As Senior Director, he contributed to the development of the U.S. government’s policy on counter-proliferation issues, including on the Iranian, Syrian, and North Korean nuclear files; missile defense; civilian nuclear cooperation including the U.S.-India Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement; U.S. exports controls; bio-defense; and WMD and terrorism.
As the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Legislative Affairs from March 2005 to June 2007, Mr. Allen was the NSC’s chief liaison with the national security committees of Congress and led the confirmation teams of DNI nominees Negroponte and McConnell and CIA Director General Michael Hayden.
From December 2001 to February 2005, Mr. Allen worked in the legislative affairs office of the White House’s Homeland Security Council. As Special Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs, Mr. Allen was part of team that managed the White House effort to enact the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
At the beginning of the Bush Administration, Mr. Allen worked in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs at the Department of State. Mr. Allen received his L.L.M. with distinction in International Law from the Georgetown University Law Center, his J.D. from the University of Alabama (cum laude), and his B.A. from Vanderbilt University.
In addition to his work at the Bipartisan Policy Center, in 2009, Mr. Allen taught National Security Policymaking at the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs and served as an advisor for the congressionally-created Commission on WMD and Terrorism co-chaired by Senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent. Mr. Allen was the Intelligence Team Lead for the Romney for President Transition Team.
Mr. Allen is the author of Blinking Red: Crisis and Compromise in American Intelligence After 9/11. (Potomac Books, September 2013).
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, Gates Corporation
Matthew R. A. Heiman joined the Company in May 2026 and has served as the Company’s Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary since June 2026. As Chief Legal Officer, Mr. Heiman is responsible for all legal functions for Gates, including securities and corporate governance, M&A, litigation, commercial, regulatory, compliance, patents and trademarks, real estate, employment and labor, sustainability and environmental matters. Prior to joining Gates, Mr. Heiman held senior legal leadership roles at Waystar, where he served as Chief Legal & Administrative Officer from 2023 to 2025 and as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary from 2020 to 2023. Prior to that, he was with Johnson Controls, where he served as Vice President, Corporate Secretary, and Associate General Counsel. Mr. Heiman has been a Senior Fellow for the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law since 2018.
Columnist, Bloomberg View
Eli Lake is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes about politics and foreign affairs. He was previously the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast. Lake also covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI, and was a contributing editor at the New Republic. In 2005 and 2006, Lake lived in Cairo as a correspondent for the New York Sun. He has traveled to war zones in Sudan, Iraq and Gaza. Lake is one of the few journalists to report from all three members of President George W. Bush’s axis of evil: Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
Benjamin Powell is widely recognized as one of the country’s top authorities on handling cybersecurity, data breach and related investigation matters. He is a leading attorney in handling complex regulatory matters relating to international investment and mergers, including matters involving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the Defense Security Service (DSS). He also is regularly asked to be lead counsel on major investigations and strategic counseling across a variety of sensitive regulatory matters for the world’s most prominent companies.
Mr. Powell handles matters relating to international investment and mergers, including matters involving the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), is widely recognized as one of the country’s top experts on handling cybersecurity, data breach, and related investigation matters, and regularly handles major investigations and strategic counseling for the world’s most prominent companies. He is also frequently retained to perform due diligence on major domestic corporate transactions requiring expertise in government regulatory issues, including government contracting, security clearance issues with the Defense Security Service (DSS), export control and related issues. He is regularly named as one of Washington’s Top Lawyers in surveys of best attorneys in DC. The Wall Street Journal calls him one of Washington’s “big legal guns” and The Legal 500 calls him an “exceptional lawyer” who “provides clear guidance on complex technological issues.” He is recognized as a CFIUS expert in the 2013 and 2014 editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers in Business.
Mr. Powell has performed due diligence on some of the largest recent corporate transactions and successfully guided companies through some the most complex CFIUS filings for companies in a range of industries. He has counseled companies and handled investigations for many of the most sensitive cybersecurity and data breach incidents in recent years. He has represented clients in civil and criminal litigation involving privacy and surveillance issues at the state and federal level. He has also served as lead counsel on matters for companies facing difficult regulatory, congressional, and public policy issues across a range of industry sectors and subjects. Mr. Powell regularly handles matters involving the Defense Security Service, including the structuring of Special Security Agreements and Proxy Agreements, related to corporate security clearances and classified government contracting.
Mr. Powell was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate as General Counsel to the Director of National Intelligence. His background includes serving as General Counsel to the first three Directors of National Intelligence, Special Assistant to the President and associate White House Counsel, Air Force officer, work at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, corporate counsel at a software company in Silicon Valley, and part of the trial team that obtained the largest antitrust jury verdict in US history. He joined the firm in 2009.
Executive Vice President, The Federalist Society
Dean Reuter is Executive Vice President at the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. He has served in two federal government agency Offices of the Inspector General, as Counsel to the Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General, responsible for policing the use of federal funds granted and contracted through those agencies. As such, he helped conduct and oversee criminal investigations across the country. He is the principal author of the non-fiction book, The Hidden Nazi: The Untold Story of America's Deal with the Devil, and editor of Liberty’s Nemesis: The Unchecked Expansion of the State and Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American National Security. He was appointed by the President and served as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and recently served as an appointee on the U.S. Commission on Presidential Scholars. He is a graduate of Hood College (BA with Honors) and the University of Maryland School of Law.
Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy - Podcast
Stephen R. Klein, Jonathan Rauch
Free Speech & Election Law Practice Group Podcast
“Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy” (available...
Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Stephen Davis
SCOTUScast 5-28-15 featuring Stephen Davis
On March 25, 2015 the Supreme Court decided Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama, which...
City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Thomas F. Gede
SCOTUScast 5-27-2015 featuring Tom Gede
On May 18, 2015, the Supreme Court issued its decision in City and County of...
Immigration Law and Policy - Podcast
Linda L. Chavez, Thomas G. Tancredo
Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group Podcast
Is there a way out of the morass on immigration policy that is consistent with...
Debate: Was Citizens United Wrongly Decided? - Audio/Video
John O. McGinnis, Anthony Johnstone, Jeffrey Rosen
Federalist Society with the American Constitution Society and the National Constitution Center
The National Constitution Center, the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society presented this debate on...
Luncheon Address: National Insecurity: Is the Law the Enemy's Weapon?
Andrew McCarthy
2015 National Security Symposium
The Federalist Society's International & National Security Law Practice Group presented this luncheon address during...
Luncheon Address: National Insecurity: Is the Law the Enemy's Weapon?
Andrew McCarthy
2015 National Security Symposium
The Federalist Society's International & National Security Law Practice Group presented this luncheon address during...
Panel II: Are We @Cyberwar, and If So, How Should We Fight It?
Stewart A. Baker, Eric Jensen, Catherine B. Lotrionte, Jeremy A. Rabkin, John C. Yoo
2015 National Security Symposium
Several significant cyber incidents, including the recent Sony hack, have been attributed to nation-states or...
Panel II: Are We @Cyberwar, and If So, How Should We Fight It?
Stewart A. Baker, Eric Jensen, Catherine B. Lotrionte, Jeremy A. Rabkin, John C. Yoo
2015 National Security Symposium
Several significant cyber incidents, including the recent Sony hack, have been attributed to nation-states or...
Welcome & Panel I: How to Manage the Intelligence Community
Michael Allen, Matthew R. A. Heiman, Eli Lake, Ben Powell, Dean Reuter
2015 National Security Symposium
Since September 11, 2001, the intelligence community has been at the center of key national...