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.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (ret.) and former U.S. Senator
James L. Buckley was born in New York City in 1923, grew up in rural Connecticut, and received his B.A. degree from Yale. Following service as a naval officer in World War II, he returned to New Haven to secure his law degree. After several years in private practice, he joined a group of small companies engaged in oil exploration abroad. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1970 as the candidate of New York's Conservative Party. He failed of re-election; but he has since served as an under secretary of state in the Reagan administration, as president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany, and, most recently, as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He retired in 2000 and now resides in Bethesda, Maryland.
Lecturer in Law, University of Chicago Law School
Robert Gasaway is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School. He was formerly a Partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in their Washington office. He has represented and advised corporate clients on a wide variety of matters before federal courts, state courts, federal administrative agencies, and federal and state legislative bodies. Mr. Gasaway focuses his practice on appellate litigation, representing clients in the preparation of integrated, multiforum trial and appellate strategies in high-risk sets of related cases.
Vice President for Legal Affairs, Cato Institute
Roger Pilon is the Cato’s Institute’s vice president for legal affairs, the founding director of Cato’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, the inaugural holder of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, and the founding publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.
Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989 the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001 Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and testifies often before Congress.
His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Legal Times, National Law Journal, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Stanford Law and Policy Review, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, Fox News Channel, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and other media.
Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.
Partner, Baker Botts LLP
Drawing from two decades of experience in senior government, in-house corporate, and private law firm roles, Jeff Wood helps clients with federal enforcement, compliance, litigation, permitting, and policy challenges primarily in the energy and environmental fields.
Prior to joining Baker Botts, Mr. Wood served for almost two years as the Acting Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). In that capacity, Mr. Wood led ENRD and its more than 600 attorneys and staff representing EPA, Departments of the Interior, Energy, and Defense, and other agencies in civil and criminal enforcement and defensive environmental, energy, and natural resources litigation.
As the top official in ENRD, Mr. Wood managed a complex organization with an annual budget exceeding $200 million and a docket of more than 6,000 cases and matters. E&E News noted that “Wood maintains a strong relationship with ENRD's career staff” (Greenwire, Oct. 31, 2018). He previously served on the staff of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
At the Justice Department, Mr. Wood oversaw the Division's civil and criminal enforcement programs and was responsible for developing legal strategies and approving briefs in key cases including filings before the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeals in coordination with the Office of Solicitor General. In this role, Mr. Wood held the highest level security clearance and worked closely with top leadership at DOJ, EPA, the Interior Department, USDA, the Energy Department, Transportation Department, FERC, NRC and across the Executive Branch, including the White House.
With many years of both private law firm and in-house legal experience, Mr. Wood has handled complex environmental enforcement, regulatory, policy, and litigation matters for electric utilities, energy companies, maritime companies, mining companies, real estate developers, financial institutions, industrial companies and manufacturers, business coalitions, associations, small businesses, and individual property owners. Drawing from his experiences in-house, Mr. Wood brings a common-sense, cost-effective, client-focused approach to his work every day.
With a strong national reputation, Mr. Wood is a frequent speaker on environmental law and policy matters, with recent speeches and presentations at the Environmental Law Institute, Harvard Law School, Vanderbilt Law School, American University Law School, American Bar Association Environmental Law Conferences, the Texas Environmental SuperConference, Air Force Judge Advocate General School's Advanced Environmental Law Course, Baker Institute's Center for Energy Studies (Rice University), and many other venues. He frequently appears in national news to share insights on significant environmental law and policy issues, including recent quotes in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Law360, and E&E News, among others.
Joel focuses his litigation practice on the defense of patent infringement claims and challenges to patent validity as well as disputes over trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property. A registered patent attorney, he has deep experience in post-grant practice before the Patent Office, particularly contested review conducted in parallel with patent infringement litigation. Joel works closely with trial teams preparing patent portfolios for assertive litigation through rigorous “pre-examination” claim validity review and owner-directed re-examination and correction. He has also represented clients in copyright matters and related questions involving the rights surrounding various methods of copying, storing, reproducing and streaming digital media.
Joel litigates and advises candidates, election officials and members of the public on election law, including ballot access and integrity provisions of federal law. He has extensive experience in voter roll integrity and language minority ballot access provisions of federal election statutes. Joel has investigated and enforced statewide violations of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, and implemented election day polling place observers in primary and general elections in numerous jurisdictions.
United States District Court, Central District of California
Andrew Guilford is a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Central District of California. He joined the court in 2006 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.
Born in Santa Monica, California, Guilford graduated from the University of California-Los Angeles with his Bachelor's Degree in 1972 and his Juris Doctor degree in 1975.
Counsel to Senator Jeff Sessions, Senate Judiciary Committee
Wayne A. Abernathy, Wild Bells
Wayne A. Abernathy is a former U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions under President George W. Bush, receiving the Alexander Hamilton Award in recognition of his service. In that office he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. Prior to his work at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy served as Staff Director of the Senate Banking Committee, under Chairman Phil Gramm.
Following his service at the Treasury, Mr. Abernathy worked for 15 years on the staff of the American Bankers Association, as Executive Vice President for Financial Institutions Policy and Regulatory Affairs.
Previous experience with the Senate Banking Committee includes serving as Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Securities during 1995-1998. From 1989 until 1994, Mr. Abernathy was a Republican economist for the committee. He previously worked as a senior legislative assistant for Senator Gramm during 1987-1989 and as an economist for the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance and Monetary Policy during 1981-1986, under Chairman Jake Garn.
Mr. Abernathy earned his bachelor’s degree in International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in 1978. In 1980, he received a master’s degree in International Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.
Senior Fellow, Mises Institute
Alex J. Pollock is a Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute, providing thought and policy leadership on financial issues and the study of financial systems. His work includes cycles of booms and busts, financial crises with their political responses, housing finance, government-sponsored enterprises, risk and uncertainty, central banking, banking and financial regulation, corporate governance, retirement finance, student loans, and the politics of finance.
He previously served as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Financial Research in the U.S. Treasury Department 2019-2021. He was a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the R Street Institute 2015-2019 and 2021, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, 2004-2015. Among the many aspects of his AEI work, he developed the One Page Mortgage Form to give borrowers in clear form the key information they need in order to know what they are committing themselves to. He was President and CEO of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago from 1991 to 2004. There he invented the Mortgage Partnership Finance program, which successfully created front-end mortgage credit risk sharing beginning in 1997. His decades of banking experience include being a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 1991.
Pollock was a director of the CME Group 2004-2019 and of Ascendium Education Group 1989-2019. He is a director and past-chairman of the Great Books Foundation and a past president of the International Union for Housing Finance.
He is the co-author of Surprised Again! - The COVID Crisis and the New Market Bubble (2022), and the author of Finance and Philosophy—Why We’re Always Surprised (2018) and Boom and Bust: Financial Cycles and Human Prosperity (2011), as well as numerous articles and Congressional testimony.
Pollock is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Chicago, and Princeton University.
His work is available on alexjpollock.com.
Former Acting Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
Senior Fellow for Homeland Security at The Center for Renewing America, Mr. Cuccinelli has been a trial and appellate litigator, including constitutional law, for over 25 years. Additionally, Mr. Cuccinelli served in state government in the Virginia State Senate from 2002-2010, and as Virginia’s Attorney General from 2010-2014. As Virginia’s Attorney General, Mr. Cuccinelli led national litigation against Obamacare and other illegal and unconstitutional federal overreach. He also led Virginia from being among the worst states in fighting human trafficking to becoming one of the best; and his successful prosecutorial efforts resulted in record enforcement against gangs, health care fraud and child predators, all while protecting life and constitutional rights.
Mr. Cuccinelli also served in the federal government, first as the Acting Director of
United States Citizenship & Immigration Services, and then as the Acting Deputy
Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. During his tenure, Mr. Cuccinelli
was a leading spokesman for the administration on immigration, election security and
homeland security issues. He was responsible for planning and managing a budget of
over $50 billion per year, while serving as the chief operating officer for the Department
of the federal government responsible for responding to most forms of crises in the
United States. Mr. Cuccinelli was appointed by the President to serve as an original
member of the Coronavirus Task Force upon the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following his time in federal service, Mr. Cuccinelli assumed leadership of the joint
Susan B. Anthony List/American Principles Project Election Transparency Initiative, in
which position Mr. Cuccinelli seeks to fend off a federal takeover of state elections while
at the same time advancing election reforms to achieve security, transparency and
accountability in our elections.
Mr. Cuccinelli continues to be a frequent media contributor on the wide array of
subjects in which he is an expert.
Mr. Cuccinelli and his wife, Teiro, grew up and live in Virginia and they have seven
children, two sons-in-law and most joyously of all – four grandchildren (so far).
In his spare time, Mr. Cuccinelli enjoys spending time with his family, reading, shooting,
playing ultimate frisbee and watching college basketball.
Dr. John Eastman is the former Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service and former Dean at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law, where he had been a member of the faculty since 1999, specializing in Constitutional Law, Legal History, and Property. He is a founding director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, a public interest law firm affiliated with the Claremont Institute that he founded in 1999. He has a Ph.D. in Government from the Claremont Graduate School and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, and a B.A. in Politics and Economics from the University of Dallas. He serves as the Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage.
Prior to joining the Chapman law faculty, Dr. Eastman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, and to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and practiced law with the national law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. Dr. Eastman has also represented numerous clients in important constitutional law matters and has argued before the Supreme Court. On behalf of the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, he has participated as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Courts of Appeals, and State Supreme Courts in more than one hundred cases of constitutional significance, including Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (the school vouchers case), Kelo v. New London, Ct. (eminent domain), and Van Orden v. Perry (the 10 Commandments case). He has also appeared as an expert legal commentator on numerous television and radio programs, including C-SPAN, Fox News, PBS, NewsHour, and The O'Reilly Factor.
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