Elliott Abrams is an American politician and lawyer,who has served in foreign policy positions for presidents Ronald Reagan,George W. Bush,and Donald Trump. Abrams is considered to be a neoconservative. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela from 2019 to 2021 and as the U.S. Special Representative for Iran from 2020 to 2021.
The Hatch Act of 1939,An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities,is a United States federal law. Its main provision prohibits civil-service employees in the executive branch of the federal government,except the president and vice president,from engaging in some forms of political activity. It became law on August 2,1939. The law was named for Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico. It was most recently amended in 2012.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW),is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) watchdog organization devoted to U.S. government ethics and accountability. Founded in 2003 as a counterweight to conservative government watchdog groups such as Judicial Watch,CREW works to expose ethics violations and corruption by government officials and institutions and to reduce the role of money in politics.
Susan Elizabeth Rice is an American diplomat,policy advisor,and public official. As a member of the Democratic Party,Rice served as the 22nd Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council from 2021 to 2023,as the 27th U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013,and as the 23rd U.S. National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2017.
Marvin Leonard Kalb is an American journalist. He was the founding director of the Shorenstein Center on Media,Politics and Public Policy and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy from 1987 to 1999. The Shorenstein Center and the Kennedy School are part of Harvard University. Kalb is currently a James Clark Welling Fellow at George Washington University and a member of the Atlantic Community Advisory Board. He is a guest scholar in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.
Martin Sean Indyk was an Australian-American diplomat and foreign relations analyst with expertise in the Middle East.
The Office of Special Counsel was an office of the United States Department of Justice established by provisions in the Ethics in Government Act that expired in 1999. The provisions were replaced by Department of Justice regulation 28 CFR Part 600,which created the successor office of special counsel. The current regulations were drafted by former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal.
Michael Anthony McFaul is an American academic and diplomat who served as the United States ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. McFaul became the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor in International Studies in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University in 1995,where he is the Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also a Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also a contributing columnist at The Washington Post. Prior to his nomination to the ambassadorial position,McFaul worked for the U.S. National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and senior director of Russian and Eurasian affairs,where he was the architect of U.S. President Barack Obama's Russian reset policy.
Benjamin Wittes is an American legal journalist. He is editor in chief of Lawfare and senior fellow in governance studies at The Brookings Institution,where he is the research director in public law,and co-director of the Harvard Law School–Brookings Project on Law and Security. He works principally on issues related to American law and national security. Wittes was number 15 on the Politico 50 of 2017,described as "Bard of the Deep State".
John Joseph Sullivan is an American attorney and government official who served as the United States Ambassador to Russia from 2020 to 2022,and who previously served as the 19th United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2017 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party,Sullivan served as Acting United States Secretary of State from April 1,2018,to April 26,2018,following President Donald Trump's dismissal of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 13,2018,until Tillerson's official successor,Mike Pompeo,was sworn in. Tillerson did not officially leave office until March 31,2018. Sullivan,however,was delegated all responsibilities of the Secretary of State beginning March 13.
Daniel Brooks Baer is an American politician and former diplomat from Colorado currently serving as Senior Vice President for Policy Research at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Baer served in the Obama administration's State Department,first as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy,Human Rights,and Labor from 2009 to 2013,and then as United States Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe from 2013 to 2017. In 2018,Governor John Hickenlooper appointed Baer as the executive director of the Colorado Department of Higher Education.
Tomasz "Tom" P. Malinowski is an American politician and diplomat who was the U.S. representative from New Jersey's 7th congressional district from 2019 to 2023. A Democrat,he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy,Human Rights,and Labor in the Obama administration.
Walter Michael Shaub Jr. is an American attorney specializing in government ethics who,from January 9,2013 to July 19,2017,was the director of the United States Office of Government Ethics. As of July 19,2017,he joined the Washington D.C.-based election law organization the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) as Senior Director,Ethics.
Richard William Painter is an American lawyer,professor,and political candidate. From 2005 to 2007 Painter was the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. He is the S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Minnesota,and since 2016 has served as vice-chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW),a government watchdog group.
Fiona Hill is a British-American foreign affairs specialist and author. She is a former official at the U.S. National Security Council,specializing in Russian and European affairs. She was a witness in the November 2019 House hearings regarding the impeachment inquiry during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. She studied Russian at St Andrews University in Scotland and at Harvard University in the US,where she earned a Ph.D. in history in 1998. She was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. She was installed as Chancellor of Durham University in June 2023,and was appointed defence advisor to the UK government following the election of a Labour government in July 2024.
Andrew R. Wheeler is an American attorney who served as the 15th administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2019 to 2021. He served as the deputy administrator from April to July 2018,and served as the acting administrator from July 2018 to February 2019. He has been a senior advisor to Governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin since March 2022. He previously worked in the law firm Faegre Baker Daniels,representing coal magnate Robert E. Murray and lobbying against the Obama administration's environmental regulations. Wheeler served as chief counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and to the chairman U.S. senator James Inhofe,prominent for his rejection of climate change. Wheeler is a critic of limits on greenhouse gas emissions and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
George Aref Nader is a Lebanese-American consultant,lobbyist,political adviser,and repeat sex offender. He has repeatedly acted as an unofficial liaison between United States politicians and the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and as a lobbyist for private security firm Blackwater.
The Petschek Villa is a palatial home built by Otto Petschek in the early 1920s in Prague. Since 1945 it has been the residence of the United States Ambassadors first to Czechoslovakia,and subsequently,to the Czech Republic.
Alexander Semyon Vindman is a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel who was the Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC) until he was reassigned on February 7,2020. Vindman is currently director for the think tank the Institute for Informed American Leadership (IIAL).
Ian Bassin is an American lawyer,writer,and activist who serves as executive director of Protect Democracy. He previously served as Associate White House Counsel under President Obama.
