Vice President, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
John G. Malcolm oversees Advancing American Freedom’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the organization’s Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to joining Advancing American Freedom in 2025, Malcolm was the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and the Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association.
Malcolm served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP.
From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an associate independent counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work in connection with the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Columbia College, Malcolm began his career as a law clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge, and as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (new Eversheds Sutherland).
Malcolm, who resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera and is a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States.
Assistant Deputy Chief, Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering, United States Department of Justice
John W. Vardaman, III has been the Assistant Deputy Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section of the United States Department of Justice since January 2011. Prior to this, he served as Senior Counsel in the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department from 2006 to 2011.
Before joining the Justice Department, Mr. Vardaman was Special Assistant to the General Counsel at the U.S. Treasury Department from 2001 to 2005. While there, he served a stint as Associate General Counsel with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq from November 2003 to July 2004.
Before joining government, Mr. Vardaman was an associate at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP from 1997 to 2001.
Mr. Vardaman received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and subsequently clerked for Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle on the District of Columbia Superior Court.
Assistant Attorney General & Senior Trial Counsel to the Criminal Bureau, Massachusetts Attorney General
Legal Director & General Counsel, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation
Kent S. Scheidegger has been the Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation since December 1986. He also served as Chairman of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society 2003 to 2005. His articles on criminal and constitutional law have been published in law reviews, national legal publications, and congressional reports. Legal arguments authored by Mr. Scheidegger have been cited and incorporated in several precedent-setting United States Supreme Court decisions.
After receiving a degree in physics with honors from New Mexico State University in 1976, Mr. Scheidegger served for six years in the United States Air Force as a Nuclear Research Officer. He took his law degree with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law in 1982 and practiced civil law in Northern California. He was general counsel of California Cooler, Inc. from 1984 until 1986, when he joined the Foundation.
Professorial Lecturer in Law, The George Washington University
Paul Rosenzweig is an accomplished writer and speaker with a national reputation in cyber security and homeland security. He is the founder of Red Branch Consulting PLLC, a homeland security consulting company. He is also a Senior Advisor to The Chertoff Group. Mr. Rosenzweig formerly served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy in the Department of Homeland Security.
He is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University, and a Senior Fellow in the Tech, Law & Security Program at the American University, Washington College of Law. He serves as an advisor to and former member of the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security, and a Contributing Editor of the Lawfare blog. He is a member of the ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force and of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Advisory Committee on Admissions and Grievances. He serves, as well, as a Hearing Committee Member of the District of Columbia Board of Professional Responsibility. In 2011 he was a Carnegie Fellow in National Security Journalism at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.
Mr. Rosenzweig is a cum laude graduate of the University of Chicago Law School. He has an M.S. in Chemical Oceanography from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego and a B.A from Haverford College. Following graduation from law school he served as a law clerk to the Honorable R. Lanier Anderson, III of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
He is the author of Cyber Warfare: How Conflicts in Cyberspace are Challenging America and Changing the World and of three video lecture series from The Great Courses, Thinking About Cybersecurity: From Cyber Crime to Cyber Warfare; The Surveillance State: Big Data, Freedom, and You; and Investigating American Presidents.
He is the co-author (with James Jay Carafano) of Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom and co-editor (with Jill D. Rhodes and Robert S. Litt) of the Cybersecurity Handbook (3rd ed.). He is also co-editor (with Timothy McNulty and Ellen Shearer) of two books, Whistleblowers, Leaks and the Media: The First Amendment and National Security, and National Security Law in the News: A Guide for Journalists, Scholars, and Policymakers. Mr. Rosenzweig is a member of the Literary Society of Washington.
Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst, Speech, Privac, American Civil Liberties Union
Chris Soghoian is the Principal Technologist and a Senior Policy Analyst with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. He completed his Ph.D. at Indiana University in 2012, which focused on the role that third party service providers play in facilitating law enforcement surveillance of their customers. Between 2009 and 2010, he was the first ever in-house technologist at the Federal Trade Commission's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, where he worked on investigations of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Netflix. Prior to joining the FTC, he co-created the Do Not Track privacy anti-tracking mechanism now adopted by all of the major web browsers.?
Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Vince Vitkowsky chaired the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law and Policy Practice Group for over a decade. He is also a Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University Law School. Vince spent 45 years in private practice, primarily in AmLaw 100/200 firms and their spin-offs. His practice included domestic and international commercial arbitration and litigation, as well as cyber risks and liabilities. Vince's current focus is on national security policy, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism. He has often written and spoken on national security and other public policy issues. Among other affiliations, Vince has been an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Law and Counterterrorism of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Interventions and Trial Observations of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Cornell Law School.
General Counsel, Center for Individual Rights
Darpana Sheth joined CIR as General Counsel in May 2025. She is a nationally recognized constitutional litigator with over two decades of experience serving in in leadership roles at other nonprofit organizations.
Before joining CIR, Darpana served for four years as Vice President of Litigation for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Prior to that, Darpana was a Senior Attorney with the Institute for Justice, where she also served as Director of the Institute’s National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse.
Before finding her calling as a public-interest attorney, Darpana served as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York and worked in private practice as a litigation associate at the Manhattan law firm of Chadbourne & Parke, LLP. She also served as law clerk to the Honorable Jerome A. Holmes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
A native of Philadelphia, Darpana graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and History. She earned her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Judge Carlos Bea serves as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received his Bachelor's Degree from Stanford University in 1956 and his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1958. Judge Bea was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and immigrated with his family to Cuba in 1939. In 1952, he represented Cuba on the Cuban National basketball team in the Helsinki Olympics. Judge Bea became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1958. He engaged in private practice in San Francisco, principally in the area of civil trials (jury and non-jury), from 1959-75 at Dunne, Phelps & Mills and from 1975-90 at Carlos Bea, A Law Corporation. He taught courses in civil litigation advocacy at Hastings College of Law and Stanford Law School. From 1990 to 2003, Judge Bea served as a judge of the San Francisco Superior Court. He was nominated by President George W. Bush to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and was confirmed in 2003.
Judge Bea and his wife Louise reside in San Francisco, where they raised their four sons, Sebastian, Alexander, Nicholas, and Dominic.
Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus, The Heritage Foundation
Edwin Meese III, the prominent conservative leader, thinker and elder statesman, continues a quarter-century formal association with The Heritage Foundation as the leading think tank’s Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus.
In that capacity, Meese oversees special projects and acts as an ambassador for Heritage within the conservative movement.
Meese was chairman of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies from its founding in 2001 until what he calls his “semi-retirement” on Feb. 1, 2013.
He joined Heritage in 1988 as the think tank's first Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow -- the only policy chair in the country to be officially named for the 40th president. His work focused on keeping President Reagan’s legacy of conservative principles alive in public debate and discourse.
The legal center now bears his name, in recognition of Meese’s contributions to the rule of law and the nation’s understanding of constitutional law. Its mission is to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution and legal principles -- and how they affect public policy.
Perhaps best known as U.S. attorney general during Reagan’s second term, Meese’s service to the conservative icon stretched from the California governor’s mansion in 1966 to the White House in 1981 before he went to the Department of Justice four years later.
His Heritage “hats” kept Meese among the major conservative voices in national policy debates at an age when most men and women enjoyed quiet retirements.
In 2006, for example, Meese was named to the Iraq Study Group, a special presidential commission dedicated to examining the best resolutions for America's involvement in Iraq. In the past few years he wrote and spoke about constitutional topics ranging from religious liberty to the responsibility of Supreme Court justices.
Immediately after Reagan's death in 2004, and in the years since, Meese often agreed to major media appearances to discuss the lasting impact of his old friend, mentor and boss. He has summarized the Reagan legacy in three accomplishments: Reagan cut taxes and kept them low. He worked to defeat and end the Soviet Union and its worldwide push for communism. And he restored America's faith in itself after years of failure and "malaise."
"I admired him as a leader and cherish his friendship," Meese wrote in a 2004 essay for Heritage members and supporters. "Ronald Reagan had strong convictions. He was committed to the principles that had led to the founding of our nation. And he had the courage to follow his convictions against all odds." <[>Edwin Meese III was born Dec. 2, 1931, to Edwin Jr. and Leone Meese in Oakland, Calif. He graduated from Yale University in 1953 and holds a law degree from the University of California-Berkeley.
Meese spent much of his adult life working for Reagan, first after the former actor, sports announcer and athlete was elected as California’s governor in 1966 and then when he sought and won the presidency in 1980.
Reagan never forgot Meese's loyalty and hard work. During a press conference at which reporters questioned Meese's actions at the Justice Department, Reagan replied: "If Ed Meese is not a good man, there are no good men."
During the Reagan governorship, Meese served as executive assistant and chief of staff from 1969 through 1974 and as legal affairs secretary from 1967 through 1968. He previously was deputy district attorney in Alameda County, Calif.
From January 1981 to February 1985, Meese held the position of counsellor to the president -- the senior job on the White House staff -- and functioned as Reagan's chief policy adviser. In 1985, he received Government Executive magazine's annual award for excellence in management.
Meese served as the 75th attorney general of the United States from February 1985 to August 1988. As the nation's chief law enforcement officer, he directed the Justice Department and led international efforts to combat terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.
Meese’s relationship with Heritage began when he met with senior management to discuss the think tank's landmark policy guide, Mandate for Leadership, prepared for the incoming administration. Meese later recalled that Reagan personally handed out copies of the 1,093-page book to members of his Cabinet and asked them to read it. Nearly two-thirds of Mandate's 2,000 recommendations would be adopted or attempted by the Reagan administration.
More than a decade after joining Heritage, Meese assumed the chairmanship of its Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Under his guidance, the center counseled White House staffers, Justice Department officials and Senate Judiciary Committee members on the importance of filling judicial vacancies with qualified men and women who are committed to interpreting the Constitution according to the founding document's original meaning.
The center became known for hosting "moot court" practice sessions to sharpen the arguments of attorneys slated to bring important cases before the Supreme Court. Those cases addressed constitutional issues ranging from property rights to racial preferences in primary and secondary schools to restrictions on free speech in campaign finance law.
Meese headed the legal center's Advisory Board for the writing and editing of the best-selling book, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (Regnery, 2005). In it, 109 experts walked readers through a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was among those keeping the reference work handy during Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominees.
Meese's other books include “Leadership, Ethics and Policing” (Prentice Hall, 2004); “Making America Safer” (Heritage, 1997); and “With Reagan: The Inside Story” (Regnery Gateway, 1992).He wrote the Introduction to a well-received 2010 book on the “overcriminalization” trend, “One Nation Under Arrest,” by Heritage veterans Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh.
He also is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California and lectures, writes and consults throughout the United States on a variety of subjects.
As both attorney general and counsellor to Reagan, Meese was a member of the Cabinet and the National Security Council. He served as chairman of the Domestic Policy Council and the National Drug Policy Board. After Reagan won the White House in the 1980 election, Meese headed the transition team. During the campaign, he was the Reagan-Bush Committee's senior official.
Meese had a career outside government and politics. From 1977 to 1981, he was a law professor at the University of San Diego, where he also directed the Center for Criminal Justice Policy and Management.
He was an executive in the aerospace and transportation industry as vice president for administration of Rohr Industries Inc. in Chula Vista, Calif. He left Rohr to return to the practice of law, doing corporate and general work in San Diego County.
A retired colonel in the Army Reserve, Meese remains active in numerous civic and educational organizations.
He and his wife, Ursula, have two grown children and reside in McLean, Va.
Former President & CEO, The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies
Eugene B. Meyer, former President and CEO of the Federalist Society, has served as Executive Director, CEO, and/or President of the organization for more than 40 years. He is responsible for shepherding the organization from a small group of law students to a community of 90,000 lawyers, law students, academics, judges, and others interested in the rule of law. The Society now includes a Student Chapter at nearly every ABA-accredited law school in the country and Lawyers Chapters in 220 major cities across the nation. Gene earned his B.A. in history at Yale in 1975 and his M.A. in political science from the London School of Economics in 1976. Gene currently serves on the boards of the U.S. Chess Center, the Holman Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the advisory board of the Adam Smith Society. He holds the title of International Chess Master.
Former General Counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization, Former United States Ambassador to East Timor
Grover Joseph Rees is a Louisiana native whose family has lived in the Breaux Bridge/Lafayette area since the 1700s.
His first job after college was as an assistant to Congressman Dave Treen (R-LA3), who had just been elected as the first Republican Congressman from Louisiana since Reconstruction.
Rees graduated with honors from LSU Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Louisiana Law Review. While in law school he worked on Ronald Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign and was a Reagan delegate from Louisiana to the Republican National Convention. He also served as a member of the Lafayette Parish Republican Executive Committee and as a board member of Acadiana Right to Life.
In 1979, when Congressman Treen ran successfully for Governor, he asked Rees to write his authorized biography. The book, Dave Treen of Louisiana, was read and discussed widely during the campaign and after Treen’s election.
In 1985-86 Rees served as Special Counsel for Judicial Selection in President Reagan’s Justice Department, working closely with Attorney General Ed Meese to reorganize the judicial selection process to make it more philosophically oriented. These efforts resulted in the appointment of over 100 federal judges and were widely credited with transforming the federal judiciary.
From 1986 through 1991 Rees served as Chief Justice of the High Court of American Samoa, an Article I federal judicial position.
From 1991 through 1993 he was General Counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
In 1995 Rees went to work for the new Republican Congress as staff director and chief counsel of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. He worked with subcommittee chairman Chris Smith (R.-N.J.) to cut U.S. funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation and other organizations that perform and promote abortions overseas. Rees also worked on the drafting and enactment of the International Religious Freedom Act, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and other legislation that has helped to bring U.S. foreign policy into closer alignment not only with our national interests but also with our values.
In 2001-2002 Rees worked for Congressman Henry Hyde (R.-Ill.), who was then serving as Chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
From 2002 until 2006 Rees served as the first United States Ambassador to newly independent East Timor.
From 2006 until 2009 Ambassador Rees was the United States Special Representative for Social Issues, responsible for representing the United States on issues relating to vulnerable persons and the family within the United Nations system.
Ambassador Rees retired from government service in January 2009 and returned to Lafayette. He is married to Lan Dai Nguyen Rees and is a member of St. Genevieve’s Catholic parish in Lafayette. He was recently elected to serve as a member of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee.
Senior Litigation Counsel, New Civil Liberties Alliance
Throughout his 40-year career in private law practice in Washington, D.C., Richard Samp has specialized in appellate litigation with a focus on constitutional law. He served as Chief Counsel of the Washington Legal Foundation for more than 30 years. He has participated directly in more than 200 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Samp is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School and clerked for a federal judge in Detroit.
General Counsel and Vice-President of Litigation, Washington Legal Foundation
Cory Andrews is General Counsel and Vice-President of Litigation for the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF). As counsel of record for WLF and other clients, he has authored more than 100 briefs, at petition and merits stages, in the U.S. Supreme Court. He also frequently litigates in state and federal appellate courts. Before joining WLF, Cory practiced trial and appellate law for White & Case LLP, where he litigated in state and federal courts on behalf of clients in the telecommunications, hospitality, and banking industries. He received his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Florida, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Florida Law Review and elected to the Order of the Coif. Upon graduation, Cory served as a law clerk to the Honorable Steven D. Merryday of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
Research Director, Independence Institute
David B. Kopel is Research Director at the Independence Institute; Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute; and Senior Fellow at the University of Wyoming College of Law, Firearms Research Center. He received his B.A. in history with Highest Honors from Brown University and his J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School.
He is the author of over 20 books, including the textbook Firearm Law and the Second Amendment: Regulation, Rights, and Policy (Aspen Pubs. 4th ed. forthcoming 2026). His scholarship and briefs have been cited 7 Supreme Court cases--including Heller, McDonald, and Bruen--and in 140 lower courts opinions. He is the author of 120 scholarly articles. His shorter articles often appear on The Volokh Conspiracy blog, hosted by Reason magazine. His topics of interest include the right to arms throughout history, the Colorado Constitution, and law enforcement policy.
Senior Counsel, Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
William J. Haun is Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and a Nonresident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). At Becket, Will litigates nationwide in defense of religious liberty for all faith traditions, particularly before the U.S. Supreme Court and in other federal and state appellate courts. His litigation includes being a member of the U.S. Supreme Court team that prevailed 9-0 for Catholic Social Services in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, arguing before multiple federal appellate courts, federal district courts, and the Supreme Court of Texas. At AEI, Will writes and researches on constitutionalism and self-government’s prerequisites, especially the role of religion in securing and preserving freedom.
Before joining Becket and AEI, Will practiced appellate and antitrust law at two international law firms—Shearman & Sterling and Hunton & Williams. He also served as a law clerk to Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Judge Claude Hilton of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Will often writes on constitutional law issues, including in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, the Catholic University Law Review, National Affairs, Law & Liberty, National Review Online, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He also speaks on these topics, including at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, Princeton University, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the University of Chicago Law School. He received his J.D. from the Catholic University of America, cum laude, where he was a published member of the Law Review. He received his B.A. from American University in political science, cum laude. He lives in Maryland with his wife and children, where they enjoy sailing, cheering on their favorite baseball teams, and discovering the great traditions of their Catholic faith.
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