In this training, co-sponsored by the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, we will examine the impact of pardons granted to January 6th defendants and how prosecutors should navigate cases of political violence. Expert speakers will explore effective prosecution strategies for January 6th defendants, legal avenues for addressing militias and other groups challenging state authority, national trends in political violence, and the broader implications for our democracy.

Eligible for 1.5 Hours of General MCLE Credit in CA.

Speakers

Mary McCord is Executive Director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) and a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. At ICAP, McCord leads a team that brings constitutional impact litigation at all levels of the federal and state courts across a wide variety of areas including First Amendment rights, immigration, criminal justice reform, and combating the rise of private paramilitaries.

McCord was the Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2016 to 2017 and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for National Security from 2014 to 2016.

Previously, McCord was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for nearly 20 years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Among other positions, she served as a Deputy Chief in the Appellate Division, overseeing and arguing hundreds of cases in the U.S. and District of Columbia Courts of Appeals, and Chief of the Criminal Division, where she oversaw all criminal prosecutions in federal district court.

McCord is a statutorily designated amicus curiae for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. McCord served as legal counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Task Force 1-6 Capitol Security Review appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. McCord also served on the Columbus Police After Action Review Team tasked with evaluating how the Columbus, Ohio, Police Department responded to the 2020 summer protests.

McCord has written about domestic terrorism, unlawful militia activity, public safety, and the rule of law for publications including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Lawfare, and Just Security. She has appeared on NPR, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, and other media outlets.

McCord received the Oliver White Hill Courageous Advocate Award from the Virginia Trial Lawyers’ Association in 2018, based on her work with ICAP litigating against white supremacist and private militias that attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

McCord graduated from Georgetown University Law School and served as a law clerk for Judge Thomas Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Julia Gegenheimer is Senior Counsel at the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. She joined ICAP from the United States Department of Justice, where she served as an Assistant Special Counsel and as a Special Litigation Counsel in the Civil Rights Division’s Criminal Section. With the Civil Rights Division, Julia prosecuted complex federal civil rights violations, including constitutional violations committed under color of law and hate crimes, with a particular focus on cases involving extremism and domestic terrorism. She received the Attorney General’s David Margolis Award for Exceptional Service and the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service, the Justice Department’s two highest awards, for her work as a federal prosecutor.

Before joining DOJ, Julia served as a law clerk to Judge James S. Gwin of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. She received her law degree cum laude from Harvard Law School and her undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Yale University.

A trial lawyer, experienced investigator, and former federal prosecutor, Alexis Loeb’s practice focuses on white-collar defense and government and internal investigations, antitrust matters, and complex civil litigation. She represents companies and individuals in domestic and international matters in courts across the country and before government agencies such as the DOJ, SEC, FTC, FinCEN, and other law enforcement and financial regulatory agencies.

Alexis joins the firm after 11 years at the U.S. Department of Justice as a trial attorney in its Antitrust and Criminal Divisions in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., and in the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in the Northern District of California and in the District of Columbia, where she worked on some of the DOJ’s most high-profile matters.

Before returning to private practice, Alexis was a Deputy Chief overseeing one of the largest DOJ investigations in history. Her participation involved extensive electronic discovery, all stages of criminal litigation, frequent trial practice, briefing of novel statutory and constitutional issues, coordination with other Department of Justice components, and litigation in district court, the D.C. Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. Her work was recognized with a Federal Bureau of Investigation award. While she was based out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, she prosecuted a range of crimes and worked for the office’s appellate section, for which she briefed and argued multiple Ninth Circuit appeals.

During her time with the Antitrust Division, Alexis investigated and prosecuted criminal antitrust matters, including convicting several individuals for their role in a multi-year bid-rigging conspiracy following three jury trials. She was honored with an Assistant Attorney General’s award for this work. She also investigated international and domestic price-fixing conspiracy allegations and reviewed companies’ Hart Scott Rodino Act merger-related filings. She served as the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) coordinator for the Antitrust Division’s San Francisco office, for which she was the office lead on issues relating to the collection of electronic evidence under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

While at the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, she led international financial investigations and prosecutions concerning international money laundering, Bank Secrecy Act, and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations, and brought civil forfeiture actions targeting the proceeds of international public corruption schemes. Her matters often required extensive coordination with enforcers around the globe and in the United States.

Prior to joining the DOJ, Alexis was an associate at a national law firm, where she worked on intellectual property and criminal and civil antitrust matters. She clerked for the Honorable Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York.

Gowri Ramachandran is the director of elections and security in the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program. Her work focuses on election security, election administration, and combating election disinformation. She led the Brennan Center’s report, Intimidation of State and Local Officeholders, documenting how abuse harms not only elected officials, but also the public they serve.

Before joining the Brennan Center, she was a professor of law at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, where she taught courses in constitutional law, employment discrimination, and critical race theory, as well as the Ninth Circuit Appellate Litigation Clinic. Her work was published in Election Law Journal, North Carolina Law Review, and Yale Law Journal Online, among others. She served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ Fairness Committee, which considers racial, religious, gender, and other disparities in the administration of justice.

Ramachandran received an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Yale College, a master’s degree in statistics from Harvard University, and a JD from Yale Law School, where she was editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal. After law school, Ramachandran served as a law clerk to Judge Sidney R. Thomas of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.