Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University; Former General Counsel at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Alden Abbott is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center. Prior to joining Mercatus, he served as the General Counsel of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As the Commission’s chief legal officer and adviser, he represented the agency in court and provides legal counsel to the Commission and its bureaus and offices.
Prior to rejoining the FTC in April 2018, Mr. Abbott served in executive positions at the Heritage Foundation (2014-2018) and BlackBerry (2012-2014). He also held a variety of senior positions in the U.S. federal government (in the FTC, the Commerce Department, and the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and the Antitrust Division).
He speaks French, Spanish, and Italian.
Senior Counselor and Director of Oversight and Investigations, America First Legal Foundation, Cause of Action
Reed D. Rubinstein is Senior Counselor and Director of Oversight and Investigations for the America First Legal Foundation. He has extensive constitutional, administrative, and complex commercial trial and appellate experience, including Executive Branch and Congressional oversight, investigations, and enforcement.
Reed joined the Trump Campaign legal team in February 2016, supported Treasury, DHS, and DOD operations during the Presidential Transition, and entered Federal service in January 2017. As Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Education General Counsel (acting and delegated), and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury, Reed fought to protect free speech, religious liberty, and civil rights; combat anti-Semitism; expose Obama/Biden support for the Iranian regime; and defend the Trump Administration against Congressional overreach and leftist lawfare. He played a material role in many Trump Administration actions and Executive Orders and between June 2019 and January 2021, initiated and led twenty-seven civil investigations of U.S. universities for colluding with the Chinese Communist Party, violating foreign money disclosure laws, misrepresenting free speech policies, failing to provide balance in Middle Eastern studies, making false non-discrimination assurances (the Princeton investigation), and consumer fraud.
Reed is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and has practiced law since 1985. A former AmLaw 10 shareholder, he spent thirty years in the private practice of law representing manufacturing and retail corporations, financial institutions, trade associations, and individuals in a wide range of matters. Notably, he represented the victims of the Fort Hood terrorist attack, overcoming the Obama Administration, the Pentagon, and House Speaker John Boehner to win them Purple Hearts and medical benefits.
Founder, President and CEO, LabMD
Mike Daugherty is the CEO of LabMD, a cancer testing laboratory. He has spent most of the last decade defending his company against charges that it had deficient cybersecurity practices. The early years of his entering and fighting Washington, DC, are recorded in his book, “The Devil Inside the Beltway”. In so doing, he has become the only litigant to challenge the basic authority that underlies more than 200 enforcement actions relating to cybersecurity and online privacy that the FTC has brought over the past 15 years. Every one of the 200+ litigants before him – including some of the largest companies in the world – have settled with the FTC, creating an unquestioned and untested belief that the FTC has broad authority to regulate in these areas. Following oral arguments in June, 2017, before a panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, it seems entirely possible that he will prevail. In so doing, he may well topple key pillars of the FTC’s cybersecurity and online privacy edifice, successfully exposing and challenging The Administrative State.
Partner, Wiley Rein, LLP
Megan L. Brown is a partner at Wiley Rein LLP. She has significant litigation, appellate and regulatory experience before state and federal courts and agencies.
Ms. Brown helps businesses respond to federal, state and local regulation and investigations raising administrative law, statutory interpretation, and constitutional issues, including the First Amendment.
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Citigroup
Brent McIntosh joined Citi as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary in October 2021. Brent leads Citi's global legal team, including Citi security and investigative services, and oversees Citi’s independent compliance risk management function.
Brent served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 2019 to 2021. He led the Treasury Department’s engagement in the G7 and G20, represented the United States on the Financial Stability Board, and managed U.S. participation at the IMF and World Bank. He oversaw Treasury’s international economic and financial policy work, including significant engagements on investment security and regulation of digital currencies. During 2020, he coordinated initiatives to alleviate the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic consequences.
From 2017 to 2019, Brent served as Treasury’s General Counsel, leading the department’s approximately 2,000 lawyers and spearheading its regulatory reform efforts. Prior to that, he was a partner in the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where his practice focused on complex disputes involving financial institutions and multinational corporations.
Brent served in the White House from 2006 until 2009, first as Associate Counsel to the President and then as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Staff Secretary. Before that, he was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Justice Department, where his work focused on national security matters.
A Michigan native, Brent holds an A.B. in economics and political science from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Following law school, he was a law clerk to two federal appellate judges, Dennis Jacobs of the Second Circuit and Laurence H. Silberman of the D.C. Circuit. Brent serves on the Board of Directors of the Alexander Hamilton Society, the Board of Advisors for the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, and the Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he previously served as an Adjunct Senior Fellow for International Economics and Finance, as well as the Bretton Woods Committee and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Rebecca Seidel currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky and in 2023 recently joined the state office of Senator Rand Paul, M.D, as Grant Coordinator. In this position, Ms. Seidel tracks grant opportunities, both public and private, that could aid constituents and works to provide support and helpful information to those in need who can benefit.
Prior to moving to Kentucky in 2016 Rebecca Seidel was General Counsel of the Senate Commerce Committee in Washington D.C. In that role, Ms. Seidel handled cybersecurity, privacy, data security, vehicle safety and consumer protections issues. She also oversaw committee investigations and oversight of the executive branch and private sector companies. Prior to joining the Commerce Committee, Ms. Seidel held positions in the Senate, the Executive Branch and in private sector law practice.
Immediately prior to the Commerce Committee, Ms. Seidel was counsel to the Senate Impeachment Trial Committee, formed for the trial of Judge G. Thomas Porteous. Before that Ms. Seidel was Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs at the Department of Justice. Previously she served as senior counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee handling legal reform issues including asbestos and class action. Prior to that she started her government career as counsel to then Senator George V. Voinovich.
Ms. Seidel’s time in private law practice was spent in the Boston, Massachusetts area where she was a litigator for five years practicing federal and state civil litigation defense in complex product liability, premises liability, liquor liability, and ERISA cases. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and her law degree from the University of Dayton.
Partner, Rule Garza Howley LLP
Founding Partner, Lodestar Law and Economics PLLC
Josh is the founder of Lodestar Law and Economics, PLLC. On January 1, 2013, the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed Wright as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). He is a leading scholar in antitrust law, economics, intellectual property, regulation, and consumer protection, and has published more than 100 articles and book chapters, co-authored a leading antitrust casebook, and edited several book volumes focusing on these issues. Commentators have recognized Wright as “widely considered his generation’s greatest mind on antitrust law,” and his academic work ranks him as one of the most cited antitrust academics in the world. Wright was also awarded the Paul M. Bator Award by the Federalist Society in 2014 to “an academic who demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship, a commitment to teaching, a concern for students, and who has made a significant public impact.” Wright also served as the Executive Director of the Global Antitrust Institute, the world’s premiere academic institute focused upon antitrust education for judges and regulators and has taught hundreds of judges and thousands of regulators from dozens of countries.
Wright’s practice focuses upon helping clients solve complex competition, consumer protection, and regulatory problems by providing legal and economic analysis, strategic advice and counseling, and economic expert testimony.
Senior Counselor and Director of Oversight and Investigations, America First Legal Foundation, Cause of Action
Reed D. Rubinstein is Senior Counselor and Director of Oversight and Investigations for the America First Legal Foundation. He has extensive constitutional, administrative, and complex commercial trial and appellate experience, including Executive Branch and Congressional oversight, investigations, and enforcement.
Reed joined the Trump Campaign legal team in February 2016, supported Treasury, DHS, and DOD operations during the Presidential Transition, and entered Federal service in January 2017. As Deputy Associate Attorney General, U.S. Department of Education General Counsel (acting and delegated), and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury, Reed fought to protect free speech, religious liberty, and civil rights; combat anti-Semitism; expose Obama/Biden support for the Iranian regime; and defend the Trump Administration against Congressional overreach and leftist lawfare. He played a material role in many Trump Administration actions and Executive Orders and between June 2019 and January 2021, initiated and led twenty-seven civil investigations of U.S. universities for colluding with the Chinese Communist Party, violating foreign money disclosure laws, misrepresenting free speech policies, failing to provide balance in Middle Eastern studies, making false non-discrimination assurances (the Princeton investigation), and consumer fraud.
Reed is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and has practiced law since 1985. A former AmLaw 10 shareholder, he spent thirty years in the private practice of law representing manufacturing and retail corporations, financial institutions, trade associations, and individuals in a wide range of matters. Notably, he represented the victims of the Fort Hood terrorist attack, overcoming the Obama Administration, the Pentagon, and House Speaker John Boehner to win them Purple Hearts and medical benefits.
Partner, Antitrust and Competition, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Maureen Ohlhausen is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises industry-leading clients on complex antitrust and litigation matters, with a focus on high-profile cases. Sought after for her depth of experience on antitrust and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)-related issues, Maureen is known for her relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad.
After finishing law school and clerking at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Maureen joined the FTC in 1997. She held a series of roles at the agency over the next 12 years, rising to the position of Director of the FTC Office of Policy Planning, where she led the agency’s work on e-commerce and headed the FTC’s Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the broadband and internet sectors. She then went into private practice at a leading telecommunications law firm, where she headed the FTC practice group.
In 2012, Maureen was confirmed by the Senate as a Commissioner of the FTC and was appointed Acting Chairman in January 2017, a role she held until May 2018. As Acting Chairman, Maureen directed all aspects of the agency’s antitrust work, including merger review, conduct enforcement, and all consumer protection enforcement, with an emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Under her leadership, the FTC won several influential merger challenges in court and reached a number of key digital privacy settlements.
To date, Maureen is the only FTC Commissioner to have received the Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her contributions to the FTC.
Following the end of her term at the FTC, and immediately prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, Maureen was chair of the global antitrust and competition practice at Baker Botts, based in that firm’s Washington, D.C., office.
A recognized thought leader, Maureen is a frequent author and speaker, and is often quoted by leading print and broadcast media on antitrust, FTC, and privacy and data security matters. She has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, intellectual property, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications. During her tenure at the FTC and in private practice, she testified more than two dozen times before Congress, including before the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Antitrust Sub-Committee. She also testified before the Antitrust Modernization Commission.
Partner, Wiley Rein, LLP
Megan L. Brown is a partner at Wiley Rein LLP. She has significant litigation, appellate and regulatory experience before state and federal courts and agencies.
Ms. Brown helps businesses respond to federal, state and local regulation and investigations raising administrative law, statutory interpretation, and constitutional issues, including the First Amendment.
General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Citigroup
Brent McIntosh joined Citi as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary in October 2021. Brent leads Citi's global legal team, including Citi security and investigative services, and oversees Citi’s independent compliance risk management function.
Brent served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 2019 to 2021. He led the Treasury Department’s engagement in the G7 and G20, represented the United States on the Financial Stability Board, and managed U.S. participation at the IMF and World Bank. He oversaw Treasury’s international economic and financial policy work, including significant engagements on investment security and regulation of digital currencies. During 2020, he coordinated initiatives to alleviate the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic consequences.
From 2017 to 2019, Brent served as Treasury’s General Counsel, leading the department’s approximately 2,000 lawyers and spearheading its regulatory reform efforts. Prior to that, he was a partner in the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, where his practice focused on complex disputes involving financial institutions and multinational corporations.
Brent served in the White House from 2006 until 2009, first as Associate Counsel to the President and then as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Staff Secretary. Before that, he was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Justice Department, where his work focused on national security matters.
A Michigan native, Brent holds an A.B. in economics and political science from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Following law school, he was a law clerk to two federal appellate judges, Dennis Jacobs of the Second Circuit and Laurence H. Silberman of the D.C. Circuit. Brent serves on the Board of Directors of the Alexander Hamilton Society, the Board of Advisors for the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, and the Advisory Council of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he previously served as an Adjunct Senior Fellow for International Economics and Finance, as well as the Bretton Woods Committee and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Rebecca Seidel currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky and in 2023 recently joined the state office of Senator Rand Paul, M.D, as Grant Coordinator. In this position, Ms. Seidel tracks grant opportunities, both public and private, that could aid constituents and works to provide support and helpful information to those in need who can benefit.
Prior to moving to Kentucky in 2016 Rebecca Seidel was General Counsel of the Senate Commerce Committee in Washington D.C. In that role, Ms. Seidel handled cybersecurity, privacy, data security, vehicle safety and consumer protections issues. She also oversaw committee investigations and oversight of the executive branch and private sector companies. Prior to joining the Commerce Committee, Ms. Seidel held positions in the Senate, the Executive Branch and in private sector law practice.
Immediately prior to the Commerce Committee, Ms. Seidel was counsel to the Senate Impeachment Trial Committee, formed for the trial of Judge G. Thomas Porteous. Before that Ms. Seidel was Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs at the Department of Justice. Previously she served as senior counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee handling legal reform issues including asbestos and class action. Prior to that she started her government career as counsel to then Senator George V. Voinovich.
Ms. Seidel’s time in private law practice was spent in the Boston, Massachusetts area where she was a litigator for five years practicing federal and state civil litigation defense in complex product liability, premises liability, liquor liability, and ERISA cases. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and her law degree from the University of Dayton.
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