Office of the Florida Attorney General
JEFFREY DESOUSA served as the Acting Solicitor General in the Florida Attorney General’s Office, where he focused on criminal appeals and constitutional litigation, primarily in the United States and Florida Supreme Courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal, and the Florida district courts. He is a member of the Florida Bar’s Appellate Court Rules Committee and the First District Appellate American Inn of Court. After graduating with honors from Georgetown Law, Jeffrey served as an appellate attorney for the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office. He has worked on hundreds of appellate cases and presented oral argument in approximately 70, including 18 in the Florida Supreme Court.
Senior Legal Fellow, the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Paul J. Larkin is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom. Paul has held various positions in the federal and state governments throughout his career, such as being an attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Special Agent-in-Charge and Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Division at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a member of the Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform Commission and of the Juvenile Justice Reform Commission in the Office of Virginia Governor George Allen.
He has also worked at Verizon Communications and two law firms in Washington, D.C. His current research is principally in the fields of drug policy, criminal justice policy, and administrative law and policy. He has published numerous articles in law and public policy journals, both in print and online.
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).
Member, Ifrah Law
After 27 years as a prosecutor, James (“Jim”) Trusty brings to Ifrah Law extensive experience in complex, multi-district white collar litigation, especially in matters involving RICO, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and The Money Laundering Control Act of 1986.
Jim has represented a wide variety of individuals and corporations in the white-collar space. He regularly represents professional athletes, both criminally and civilly, and during 2022 and 2023 he represented President Trump during pre-indictment litigation relating to the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases.
Prior to joining Ifrah Law, Jim had a long career in public service, most recently as Chief of the Organized Crime Section at the United States Department of Justice. For seven years, Jim was ultimately responsible for investigating and prosecuting regional, national, and international cases, supervising significant pleadings, and providing strategic and tactical guidance in investigations and multi-defendant trials. In addition to running the RICO Review Unit, which reviewed and approved all criminal RICO cases brought by federal prosecutors, he also was in charge of establishing and promoting policies focused on immigration reform, firearms trafficking, proposed Congressional testimony for DOJ officials, and internet gambling. Significant and sensitive matters on which he worked include the post-conviction review of the Alaska corruption case related to U.S. v. Theodore Stevens and the investigation into allegations of misconduct by a sitting U.S. Attorney and one of her subordinates.
Prior to his work at DOJ, Jim acted as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of white-collar and other criminal cases, including The Washington area Sniper investigation. He also prosecuted three death penalty cases and was a member of the Attorney General’s Capital Review Committee, responsible for assessing capital-eligible cases such as the Boston Marathon Bomber and the Charleston Church massacre.
In 2018, Jim was appointed by the Governor of Maryland to serve on The Task Force to Study Maryland’s Criminal Gang Statutes. The Task Force assessed the efficacy of existing state laws as they apply to gang-related criminal activity in the state and presented its findings and recommendations to the Governor.
Office of the Florida Attorney General
JEFFREY DESOUSA served as the Acting Solicitor General in the Florida Attorney General’s Office, where he focused on criminal appeals and constitutional litigation, primarily in the United States and Florida Supreme Courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal, and the Florida district courts. He is a member of the Florida Bar’s Appellate Court Rules Committee and the First District Appellate American Inn of Court. After graduating with honors from Georgetown Law, Jeffrey served as an appellate attorney for the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office. He has worked on hundreds of appellate cases and presented oral argument in approximately 70, including 18 in the Florida Supreme Court.
Senior Legal Fellow, the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Paul J. Larkin is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom. Paul has held various positions in the federal and state governments throughout his career, such as being an attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Special Agent-in-Charge and Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Division at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a member of the Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform Commission and of the Juvenile Justice Reform Commission in the Office of Virginia Governor George Allen.
He has also worked at Verizon Communications and two law firms in Washington, D.C. His current research is principally in the fields of drug policy, criminal justice policy, and administrative law and policy. He has published numerous articles in law and public policy journals, both in print and online.
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).
Member, Ifrah Law
After 27 years as a prosecutor, James (“Jim”) Trusty brings to Ifrah Law extensive experience in complex, multi-district white collar litigation, especially in matters involving RICO, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and The Money Laundering Control Act of 1986.
Jim has represented a wide variety of individuals and corporations in the white-collar space. He regularly represents professional athletes, both criminally and civilly, and during 2022 and 2023 he represented President Trump during pre-indictment litigation relating to the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases.
Prior to joining Ifrah Law, Jim had a long career in public service, most recently as Chief of the Organized Crime Section at the United States Department of Justice. For seven years, Jim was ultimately responsible for investigating and prosecuting regional, national, and international cases, supervising significant pleadings, and providing strategic and tactical guidance in investigations and multi-defendant trials. In addition to running the RICO Review Unit, which reviewed and approved all criminal RICO cases brought by federal prosecutors, he also was in charge of establishing and promoting policies focused on immigration reform, firearms trafficking, proposed Congressional testimony for DOJ officials, and internet gambling. Significant and sensitive matters on which he worked include the post-conviction review of the Alaska corruption case related to U.S. v. Theodore Stevens and the investigation into allegations of misconduct by a sitting U.S. Attorney and one of her subordinates.
Prior to his work at DOJ, Jim acted as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of white-collar and other criminal cases, including The Washington area Sniper investigation. He also prosecuted three death penalty cases and was a member of the Attorney General’s Capital Review Committee, responsible for assessing capital-eligible cases such as the Boston Marathon Bomber and the Charleston Church massacre.
In 2018, Jim was appointed by the Governor of Maryland to serve on The Task Force to Study Maryland’s Criminal Gang Statutes. The Task Force assessed the efficacy of existing state laws as they apply to gang-related criminal activity in the state and presented its findings and recommendations to the Governor.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Senior Fellow, National Security Institute, Antonin Scalia School of Law, George Mason University; Retired Professor, Distinguished Fellow and Co-Founder, Center for National Security Law, University of Virginia School of Law (1987-2020)
Robert F. Turner holds both professional and academic doctorates from the University of Virginia School of Law. He co-founded the Center for National Security Law with Professor John Norton Moore in April 1981 and served as its associate director for 39 years, except for two periods of government service in the 1980s and during 1994-95, when he occupied the Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He retired from UVA in January 2020 and currently serves as a non-resident senior fellow at the GMU National Security Institute. He also served briefly in 2020 as President of the Crime Prevention Research Center—one of the most respected pro-Second Amendment groups in the country—while its founder, Dr. John Lott, was on leave of absence.
A former Army captain and veteran of two tours in Vietnam, Turner served as a research associate and public affairs fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace before spending five years in the mid-1970s as national security adviser to U.S. Senator Robert P. Griffin, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (where Turner anticipated by seven years the Supreme Court’s landmark INS v. Chadha decision, striking down legislative vetoes). He also served in the executive branch during the Reagan administration as a member of the Senior Executive Service, first in the Pentagon as special assistant to the undersecretary of defense for policy, then in the White House as counsel to the President's Intelligence Oversight Board, and at the State Department as principal deputy and then acting assistant secretary for legislative affairs. In 1986, he became the first president of the congressionally established United States Institute of Peace.
A former three-term chairman of the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security (and for many years editor of the ABA National Security Law Report), Turner also chaired the Executive-Congressional Relations Subcommittee of the ABA Section on International Law and Practice and chaired or co-chaired the National Security Law Subcommittee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law Practice Group for several years.
Turner taught undergraduate courses at Virginia on international law, U.S. foreign policy, the Vietnam War and foreign policy and the law in what is now the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics. In addition, he co-taught National Security Law and advanced national security law seminars on the Indochina War and on war and peace with Moore at the Law School.
The author or editor of 17 books and monographs (including co-editor of the Center's 1,600-page National Security Law & Policy casebook, National Security Law Documents, and Legal Issues in the Struggle Against Terror) and numerous articles in law reviews and other professional journals, Turner has also contributed articles to most of the major U.S. newspapers, including The New York Times and USA Today. In an op-ed published in The International Herald Tribune in September 1990, he and Moore were the first to call for a war-crimes trial for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and for international controls over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and the following month he wrote the lead story in The Washington Post Sunday Outlook Section, “Killing Saddam: Would It Be a Crime?,” arguing that Hussein would be a lawful target during Operation Desert Storm. (His reasoning contributed to the modern legal justification for drone strikes targeting specific terrorist leaders.) Three years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Turner published an op-ed in USA Today entitled: “In Self-defense, U.S. Has Right to Kill bin Laden.”
In July 2007, he co-authored an article in The Washington Post with former U.S. Marine Corps Commandant General P.X. Kelley, “War Crimes and the White House,” criticizing the use of unlawful “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the Central Intelligence Agency. On the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon he authored an article in The Wall Street Journal, “Saigon’s Fall Still Echoes Today,” noting that after the war ended, Hanoi admitted it had made a decision in 1959 to open the Ho Chi Minh Trail and start sending troops, weapons and supplies into South Vietnam to overthrow its government — just as the United States had charged. In 2010 Turner received the first “person of the year” award from SACEI, a major Vietnamese-American human rights organization.
A frequent lecturer and debater, Turner has spoken at more than 100 law schools around the nation and in other fora — taking on as many as four opponents at a time. His debate opponents have included former or future deans of Yale, Stanford, the University of Chicago and Berkeley law schools. Following a 1987 debate against Dean Harlan Cleveland (Rhodes Scholar, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient) in which Turner defended the legality of U.S. support for the Nicaraguan contras during the Reagan Administration, the host student debating societies awarded Turner the victory by an 85-to-15 percent margin.
Turner has also written and lectured widely on University of Virginia founder and America’s third president Thomas Jefferson. In 2000-2001 he chaired the Jefferson-Hemings Scholars Commission. In his 2012 book Master of the Mountain, Jefferson critic Henry Wiencek described Turner as “Jefferson’s chief scholarly defender."
A former distinguished lecturer at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Turner is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Academy of Political Science, the Committee on the Present Danger, The Heterodox Academy, and other professional organizations. He maintained a 4.0 gpa as a graduate student at Stanford in History and Political Science and in the UVA Department of Government and Foreign Affairs and was the first person admitted directly to the UVA academic law doctorate (SJD) program without first being required to earn an LL.M. master’s degree. He was selected for inclusion in Who’s Who in American Law less than two years after graduating from law school and Who’s Who in the World before he reached the age of 40. Turner has testified before more than a dozen different congressional committees on issues of international or constitutional law and other topics.
*Russell W. Hasan is a New York attorney. He is a graduate of Vassar College and an Honors graduate of the University of Connecticut School of Law. He writes for Liberty Magazine and also maintains a website of libertarian informationalresources. He welcomes emails at russhasan@gmail.com and he tweets at@RussHasan
Ella A. and Ernest H. Fisher Professor of Law, Ohio Northern University Claude W. Pettit College of Law
Professor Lewis joined the Ohio Northern faculty in August, 2006. Lewis flew F-14's for the United States Navy in Operation Desert Shield, conducted strike planning for Desert Storm and was deployed to the Persian Gulf to enforce the no-fly zone over Iraq. He was a Topgun graduate in 1992 and was featured in a NOVA documentary on Topgun and aircraft carriers.
After his naval service, Lewis graduated from Harvard Law School, cum laude, was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company, and served as a litigation associate with McGuireWoods, LLP, in Norfolk, Virginia.
Professor Lewis has published more than a dozen articles and essays on various aspects of the law of war and the conflict between the US and al Qaeda. His work has been cited by the Seventh, Ninth and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeals. He has testified before Congress on the legality of drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and on the civil liberties tradeoffs associated with trying some Al Qaeda members or terrorist suspects before military commissions. His op-eds have appeared in numerous media outlets including the LA Times and the New York Post and he has appeared on Public Radio International to discuss the increasing use of armed drones in warfare. He has delivered scores of presentations and panel presentations before military and law school audiences alike including presentations to the international Military Operations Law conference in Queensland, Australia, the US Army's JAG School in Charlottesville, VA and law school events at Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, Penn, Duke, Texas and Northwestern among others.
Professor Lewis received the Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching for the 2007-08 academic year.
He currently teaches Commercial Law, International Law, a Law of War Seminar and Torts. He has also taught Corporate Finance and Accounting for Lawyers. His other teaching interests include Civil Procedure and Contracts.
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.
Office of the Florida Attorney General
JEFFREY DESOUSA served as the Acting Solicitor General in the Florida Attorney General’s Office, where he focused on criminal appeals and constitutional litigation, primarily in the United States and Florida Supreme Courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal, and the Florida district courts. He is a member of the Florida Bar’s Appellate Court Rules Committee and the First District Appellate American Inn of Court. After graduating with honors from Georgetown Law, Jeffrey served as an appellate attorney for the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office. He has worked on hundreds of appellate cases and presented oral argument in approximately 70, including 18 in the Florida Supreme Court.
Senior Legal Fellow, the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
Paul J. Larkin is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom. Paul has held various positions in the federal and state governments throughout his career, such as being an attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, Special Agent-in-Charge and Acting Director of the Criminal Investigation Division at the Environmental Protection Agency, and a member of the Parole Abolition and Sentencing Reform Commission and of the Juvenile Justice Reform Commission in the Office of Virginia Governor George Allen.
He has also worked at Verizon Communications and two law firms in Washington, D.C. His current research is principally in the fields of drug policy, criminal justice policy, and administrative law and policy. He has published numerous articles in law and public policy journals, both in print and online.
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).
Member, Ifrah Law
After 27 years as a prosecutor, James (“Jim”) Trusty brings to Ifrah Law extensive experience in complex, multi-district white collar litigation, especially in matters involving RICO, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and The Money Laundering Control Act of 1986.
Jim has represented a wide variety of individuals and corporations in the white-collar space. He regularly represents professional athletes, both criminally and civilly, and during 2022 and 2023 he represented President Trump during pre-indictment litigation relating to the Mar-a-Lago and January 6 cases.
Prior to joining Ifrah Law, Jim had a long career in public service, most recently as Chief of the Organized Crime Section at the United States Department of Justice. For seven years, Jim was ultimately responsible for investigating and prosecuting regional, national, and international cases, supervising significant pleadings, and providing strategic and tactical guidance in investigations and multi-defendant trials. In addition to running the RICO Review Unit, which reviewed and approved all criminal RICO cases brought by federal prosecutors, he also was in charge of establishing and promoting policies focused on immigration reform, firearms trafficking, proposed Congressional testimony for DOJ officials, and internet gambling. Significant and sensitive matters on which he worked include the post-conviction review of the Alaska corruption case related to U.S. v. Theodore Stevens and the investigation into allegations of misconduct by a sitting U.S. Attorney and one of her subordinates.
Prior to his work at DOJ, Jim acted as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Greenbelt, Maryland, where he investigated and prosecuted a wide variety of white-collar and other criminal cases, including The Washington area Sniper investigation. He also prosecuted three death penalty cases and was a member of the Attorney General’s Capital Review Committee, responsible for assessing capital-eligible cases such as the Boston Marathon Bomber and the Charleston Church massacre.
In 2018, Jim was appointed by the Governor of Maryland to serve on The Task Force to Study Maryland’s Criminal Gang Statutes. The Task Force assessed the efficacy of existing state laws as they apply to gang-related criminal activity in the state and presented its findings and recommendations to the Governor.
What Did the Founders Think of the President’s Pardon Power?
Jeffrey DeSousa, Paul James Larkin, Andrew McCarthy, James Trusty
In this Federalist Society America250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through the...
What Did the Founders Think of the President’s Pardon Power?
Jeffrey DeSousa, Paul James Larkin, Andrew McCarthy, James Trusty
In this Federalist Society America250 series, experts analyze modern legal and policy debates through the...
What Did the Founders Think of the President’s Pardon Power?
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