National Affairs Columnist, National Review
John Fund is National Affairs Columnist for National Review magazine and a on-air analyst on the Fox News Channel. He is considered a notable expert on American politics and the nexus between politics and economics.
He previously served as a columnist and editorial board member for The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several books, including Who's Counting: Bow Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote At Risk (Encounter Books, 2012); Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy (Encounter Books, 2008) and The Dangers of Regulation Through Litigation (ATRA Press, 2008). He worked as a research analyst for the California Legislature in Sacramento before beginning his journalism career as a reporter for the syndicated columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak.
Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, called him "the Tom Paine of the modern Congressional reform movement." He has won awards from the Institute for Justice, The School Choice Aliance and the Warren Brooks award for journalistic excellence from the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
Mr. Douglas is a partner in Davis Polk’s Financial Institutions Group, heading the firm’s bank regulatory practice and focusing on bank restructuring and resolutions and other issues arising from the current banking and financial crisis. He has been involved in some of the most difficult and sensitive matters during the crisis, including advising the boards of directors of Indymac and Bank United, counseling Citigroup with respect to FDIC matters, advising various parties on the fallout from the failure of Washington Mutual and advising various private equity firms on proposed investments in troubled or failed banks.
Mr. Douglas was appointed General Counsel of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 1987 and continued in that capacity through 1989. This was a period of unprecedented stress on the financial system, and he was involved in the major bank failures and restructurings of the late 1980s, participated in the landmark Financial Institutions Regulatory Reform and Restructuring Act of 1989 and assisted in the organization of the Resolution Trust Corporation.
Mr. Douglas is regarded as one of the leading bank insolvency lawyers in the nation.
Founding Partner, Boyden Gray & Associates
Ambassador C. Boyden Gray is the founding partner of Boyden Gray & Associates, a law and strategy firm in Washington, D.C., focused on constitutional and regulatory issues.
Mr. Gray worked in the White House for twelve years, first as counsel to the Vice President during the Reagan administration and then as White House Counsel to President George H.W. Bush. In the Reagan administration, he was Counsel to the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, for which he wrote the original Executive Order 12291 requiring cost-benefit analysis and White House review of regulations (later renumbered as current EO 12866). In the George H.W. Bush Administration, Mr. Gray was in charge of judicial selection and was also instrumental in the enactment of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and a cap-and-trade system for acid rain emissions. In 1993, he received the Presidential Citizens Medal. Under President George W. Bush, Mr. Gray was U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and U.S. Special Envoy to Europe for Eurasian Energy.
Mr. Gray practiced law for 25 years at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and was chairman of the Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section of the American Bar Association from 2000 to 2002. Early in his career, Mr. Gray helped to develop the Business Roundtable and served as its first counsel. He is an adjunct professor at Antonin Scalia Law School and a former adjunct professor at NYU Law School (teaching energy and environmental law). Mr. Gray is on the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council, the Federalist Society, Reason Foundation, and the Trust for the National Mall.
Mr. Gray earned his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard, where he was an editor of the Crimson, and his J.D. with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review. Mr. Gray served in the United States Marine Corps, and after law school, he clerked for Earl Warren, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Stevenson Bernard Professor, George Washington University Law School
The Honorable F. Scott Kieff is the Stevenson Bernard Professor at George Washington University Law School and a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
He served as Commissioner of the U.S. International Trade Commission from 2013-2017. He also served during the Bush, Obama, and Trump Administrations in the part-time leadership of the national security defense-intelligence community.
He was previously a professor of law and medicine at Washington University in Saint Louis and a Senior Fellow at Hoover. A former law clerk to U.S. Circuit Judge Giles S. Rich, he is a graduate of Penn Law School and MIT, where he studied molecular biology and microeconomics. He was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2012 and the Academia Europaea in 2024.
His private sector work through Kieff Strategies LLC (www.kieffstrategies.com) provides neutral services including mediation and compliance, and expert services including crisis management, advising, and testimony.
Professor Emeritus, The George Washington University Law School
Art Wilmarth is a Professor Emeritus of Law at George Washington University Law School (GW Law). He was a member of GW Law’s full-time faculty from 1986 to 2020. Prior to joining the faculty, he was a partner in Jones Day’s Washington, DC office. He served as Executive Director of GW Law’s Center for Law, Economics & Finance from 2011 to 2014.
Professor Wilmarth is the author of Taming the Megabanks: Why We Need a New Glass-Steagall Act (Oxford University Press, 2020), and co-editor of The Panic of 2008: Causes, Consequences, and Implications for Reform (Edward Elgar, 2010). He has published more than 50 law review articles and book chapters in the fields of financial regulation and American constitutional history.
In 2005, the American College of Consumer Financial Services Lawyers (ACCFSL) awarded Professor Wilmarth its annual prize for the best law review article published in the field of consumer financial services law. He has testified before committees of the U.S. Congress, the California legislature, and the U.K. House of Lords on financial regulatory issues. In 2010, he served as a consultant to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the body established by Congress to investigate the causes of the global financial crisis of 2007-09. He is a Fellow of ACCFSL and a member of the international advisory board of the Journal of Banking Regulation (Springer). He received his B.A. degree from Yale University and his J.D. degree from Harvard University.
Senior Of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP and Executive Chairma, The Chertoff Group
Michael Chertoff concentrates in the area of White Collar Defense and Investigations. In recent years, he has handled a series of federal investigations, including complex criminal and civil regulatory matters. He has advised major clients on SEC and Justice Department investigations and successfully served as the independent monitor of a major national healthcare company under criminal and civil investigation.
In addition to his legal work, Mr. Chertoff is Founder and Chairman of The Chertoff Group, a security and risk management firm, where he provides high-level strategic counsel to corporate and government leaders on a broad range of security issues, from risk identification and prevention to preparedness, response and recovery.
In April of 2012, Mr. Chertoff was elected as the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of BAE Systems, Inc. He also sits on the board of directors or board of advisors of a number of companies and nonprofits.
Previously, Mr. Chertoff served as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. As Secretary, he led a 218,000 person department with a budget of $50 billion. Mr. Chertoff developed and implemented border security and immigration policy; promulgated homeland security regulations; and spearheaded a national cyber security strategy. He also served periodically on the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, and on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Prior to his appointment to the Cabinet, Mr. Chertoff served from 2003 to 2005 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Before becoming a federal judge, Mr. Chertoff was the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In that position, he oversaw the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and formed the Enron Task Force, which produced more than 20 convictions, including those of CEOs Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay.
Mr. Chertoff’s career includes more than a decade as a federal prosecutor, including service as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, and Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Chertoff investigated and personally prosecuted significant cases of political corruption, organized crime, and corporate fraud.
From 1994-2001, Mr. Chertoff represented major corporations and individuals in numerous white collar investigations and trials. Among other matters, he successfully represented the nation’s largest hospital company in a four year, multi-jurisdictional criminal and civil investigation, represented major corporations in corruption scandals, and obtained acquittals at trial for individual criminal defendants.
Mr. Chertoff has received numerous awards including the Department of Justice Henry E. Petersen Memorial Award (2006); the Department of Justice John Marshall Award for Trial of Litigation (1987); NAACP Benjamin L. Hooks Award for Distinguished Service (2007); European Institute Transatlantic Leadership Award (2008); and two honorary doctorates. His trial experiences have been featured in over half a dozen books and many news articles.
Executive Vice President of Global Governance, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Walmart Inc.
Rachel Brand is Walmart’s executive vice president of global governance, chief legal officer, and corporate secretary. She oversees the company’s global legal, compliance, ethics, corporate governance, digital citizenship, aviation, investigative, and corporate security functions, including Walmart’s Emergency Operations Center.
Immediately before joining Walmart, Rachel served as the United States Associate Attorney General and holds the distinction of being the first woman to serve in this role. She had previously served in the U.S. Department of Justice as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy during President George W. Bush’s administration. Her other government service includes an appointment by President Obama to serve as a Member of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, service as an Associate Counsel to the President at the White House, and judicial clerkships with Justice Charles Fried of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and Justice Anthony Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States. In the private sector, Rachel was a lawyer in private practice at two law firms in Washington, D.C. and served as the Vice President and Chief Counsel for Regulatory Litigation at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Litigation Center.
Rachel serves on the board of directors for the Walmart Foundation and is the executive sponsor for Walmart’s Tribal Voices Associate Resource Group. Outside of Walmart, she serves on the board of directors for the International Justice Mission and is a member of The American Law Institute.
Rachel earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota-Morris and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
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