Jason D. Wright

Drawing on a distinguished active duty and reserve military career that requires close engagement with U.S. law enforcement, intelligence, and national security agencies, Mr. Wright understands the complexities of the U.S. national security and international sanctions regimes. He regularly advises clients on cross-border transactions and mergers and acquisitions involving economic sanctions, export controls, foreign direct investment (FDI), and other economic and national security constraints.

He routinely represents clients before the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the Bureau of Industry and Security and advises on discrete matters before the Department of Justice’s FARA Unit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the U.S. Special Forces Community. Mr. Wright has a deep knowledge about the laws these agencies enforce, the agencies themselves, and how they operate and coexist to interpret and enforce those laws in practice.

A trial lawyer at heart, Mr. Wright has a vibrant practice in the courtroom as a white-collar criminal defense attorney and commercial litigator in the U.S. and abroad. A former law clerk at the “Rocket Docket,” the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, his experience includes serving as co-counsel in the widely publicized Dewey & LeBoeuf trial, handling federal and U.S. Supreme Court appeals in securities and financial fraud cases, defending public corruption jury trials against senior U.S. government officials accused of illegal contracting, and advising on alleged multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency fraud cases. His commercial and administrative law litigation experience includes successful representation in civil RICO, Defend Trade Secrets Act, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, and the IRS Whistleblower Program.

Mr. Wright, the first U.S. military officer to earn an advanced law degree (M.St., 2010) in international human rights law from the University of Oxford, has published and presented on public international law matters in the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Mr. Wright, whose expertise has been sought by sovereigns and intergovernmental organizations, has tried and defended cases in the United States involving the application of public international law and advised on litigation before various international criminal tribunals. Mr. Wright has represented victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and terrorism in Europe and in the United States arising from conflicts in Libya and Ukraine.

Mr. Wright previously directed an international criminal law litigation clinic at Washington and Lee University School of Law and taught at Georgetown University Law Center on international criminal law, terrorism, and war crimes.

Skilled and highly-trained in public relations, Mr. Wright has appeared in international and national media and testified before the U.S. Congress on national security law matters. He has been profiled by NPR, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Slate, and in New York Times and Netflix documentaries. Mr. Wright regularly presents in the United States and internationally on economic sanctions, national security law, and public international law matters and has published on international humanitarian law and international criminal law.

Mr. Wright is a judge advocate (JAG) in the U.S. Army Reserve assigned to the U.S. Military Academy (USMA) at West Point where he teaches constitutional law, military law, and national security law. Between 2005 and 2014, Mr. Wright served as an Army JAG on active duty with tours of duty in Europe, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Iraq. In 2008, he became the first lawyer in U.S. Army history to become an aide-de-camp to a commanding general in combat. For his last tour on active duty, the Office of the Secretary of Defense assigned Wright to serve as the lead military defense counsel to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the lead defendant in the 9/11 conspiracy case before the U.S. Military Commissions in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Before his Army JAG service, Mr. Wright clerked for the Secretary of the U.S. Army in the Office of the General Counsel in 2003 and thereafter for the Honorable Barry R. Poretz of the “Rocket Docket,” the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria, Virginia from 2004 to 2005. Mr. Wright currently holds the rank of Major in the U.S. Army Reserve, and has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his combat service in Iraq, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal by U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel for his advocacy before the U.S. Military Commissions, the Army Meritorious Service Medal and the Airborne Parachutist Badge.

Mr. Wright maintains an active pro bono practice in support of veterans' issues, wounded warriors and their families, and Gold Star Families.