Viet D. Dinh

Viet D. Dinh ( _vi. Đinh Đồng Phụng Việt; born February 22, 1968) is a lawyer who served as the Assistant Attorney General of the United States from 2001 to 2003, under the presidency of George W. Bush. Born in Saigon, South Vietnam, he was the chief architect of the USA PATRIOT Act.

Early life

Dinh was born in Saigon, South Vietnam. He and his family emigrated to the United States to escape oppressive campaigns from the communist government of Vietnam in 1978. They initially settled in Portland, Oregon, but moved to Fullerton, California two years later.

Dinh graduated "magna cum laude" from Harvard University in 1990 with an A.B. in Government and Economics. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was a Class Marshal, an Olin Research Fellow in Law and Economics, and Bluebook editor of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated "magna cum laude" in 1993.

Career

Law

After graduating from law school, Dinh served as a law clerk to Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Dinh has served as Associate Special Counsel to the U.S. Senate Whitewater Committee, as Special Counsel to Senator Pete V. Domenici for the Impeachment Trial of President Bill Clinton, and as counsel to the Special Master in In re Austrian and German Bank Holocaust Litigation.

He is a member of the District of Columbia and Supreme Court bars.

In late 2003, he was one of a group of prominent U.S. security officials hired by ChoicePoint to advise the company on developing its government homeland security contracts.

Dinh currently serves on the boards of the News Corporation, Liberty’s Promise, the American Judicature Society, the Transition Committee for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Section on National Security Law of the Association of American Law Schools, and the ABA Section on Administrative Law.

He currently resides in Washington, D.C., teaches at Georgetown University Law Center, and is the principal at Bancroft Associates PLLC. In 2006 he joined Kenneth Starr in challenging the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. [ [http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=102110&d=815&h=817&f=816&dateformat=%25B%20%25e,%20%25Y AccountingWEB.com ] ]

His representative publications include "Defending Liberty: Terrorism and Human Rights" in the "Helsinki Monitor", "Codetermination and Corporate Governance in a Multinational Business Enterprise" in the "Journal of Corporation Law", and "Financial Sector Reform and Economic Development in Vietnam" in "Law and Policy in International Business". He is also the author of "Judicial Authority and Separation of Powers" (forthcoming).

In September 2006 Dinh received publicity for representing Tom Perkins, a former Hewlett-Packard director involved in the company's pretexting scandal. The emails between Perkins and Larry Sonsini, a corporate lawyer involved with Board of Directors decisions for many Corporations were ventually forwarded to reporters and became public. [cite web|url=http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/09/08/issue-spotting-larry-sonsinis-email-exchange/|title=Issue Spotting: Larry Sonsini’s Email Exchange|first=Peter|last=Lattman|accessdate=2007-08-27]

Dinh is also on the board of directors of News Corporation with Perkins and Rupert Murdoch. [ [http://www.newscorp.com/corp_gov/bod.html News Corporation ] ]

Department of Justice

Dinh served as Assistant Attorney General of the United States from 2001 to 2003, under the presidency of George W. Bush. He was confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 96 to 1, with the sole No vote coming from Hillary Clinton. [Citation | last = Lichtblau | first = Eric | author-link = Eric_Lichtblau| last2 = | first2 = | author2-link = | title = At Home in War on Terror: Viet Dinh has gone from academe to a key behind-the scenes role. Conservatives love him; others find his views constitutionally suspect.| newspaper = Los Angeles Times | pages = A1 | year = 2002 | date = September 18, 2002 | url = http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/185579951.html?dids=185579951:185579951&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Sep+18%2C+2002&author=ERIC+LICHTBLAU&pub=Los+Angeles+Times&edition=&startpage=A.1&desc=COLUMN+ONE%3B+At+Home+in+War+on+Terror%3B+Viet+Dinh+has+gone+from+academe+to+a+key+behind-the+scenes+role.+Conservatives+love+him%3B+others+find+his+views+constitutionally+suspect.] As the official responsible for federal legal policy, Dinh worked with issues of illicit drugs, racial profiling in federal law enforcement, exploitation of children, human trafficking, DNA technology, gun violence, and civil and criminal justice procedural reform. Dinh was also involved in the selection and confirmation of 100 district and 23 appellate judges in his role representing the U.S. Department of Justice. After 9/11, Dinh conducted a comprehensive review of DOJ priorities, policies and practices, and played a key role in developing the USA PATRIOT Act and revising the Attorney General's Guidelines, which govern federal law enforcement activities and national security investigations.Fact|date=April 2007

Georgetown University Law Center

Dinh is Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. His expertise lies in constitutional law, corporations law, and the law and economics of development. He is also currently Co-Director of the Asian Law & Policy Studies Program. He previously served as Co-Director of the Joint Program in Law and Business Administration, from 1998–99.

Personal life

His family was separated in 1975 when his father, Phong Dinh, was imprisoned in a re-education camp after the fall of Saigon. His father was being held as a political prisoner in the family's war-ravaged homeland. He escaped in 1978, and remained a fugitive in Vietnam, when his mother, Nga Thu Nguyễn, and his older siblings got on a boat with 85 other people and set out. For 12 days Dinh was in a broken 15-foot-long boat with no food or water as they encountered a Thai fishing crew that gave them food and gas, and helped fix the boat and pointed them toward land. When they reached Malaysia, they found only to be met by gunshots from a patrol boat; the Malaysians didn't want them. Their boat docked but Dinh's mother realized that the port police would force them to leave the next morning, so she sneaked back out to the boat alone that night with an axe and damaged the boat so as not to be sent back on it. After six months as refugees in Malaysia, Dinh's family made it to Oregon in November 1978. They picked strawberries for menial wages, sending money back to Dinh's father and a sibling hiding out in Vietnam. After Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, the crop damage forced his family to relocate to Fullerton.

Dinh was honored by his high school alma mater when he was added to Fullerton's wall of fame. He will share that wall with an ideological opposite, David Boies, former Vice President Al Gore's lawyer for the Florida recount.

Dinh was reunited with his father in 1983. In 1992, he was reunited with one of his sisters at a refugee camp in Hong Kong, a meeting filmed by the newsmagazine show "Dateline NBC".

Future Supreme Court nominee

Dinh was mentioned as a potential nominee to The Supreme Court of the United States in a Republican administration. [cite web|url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110007237|title=Justice Dinh|first=James|last=Taranto|accessdate=2007-08-27]

Articles, interviews, and testimony

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* " [http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,62388,00.html The Patriot Act Is Your Friend] ", Interview with Kim Zetter, "Wired News", 2004-02-24
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* " [http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=998&wit_id=2877 America After 9/11: Freedom Preserved or Freedom Lost?] ", Testimony for the Senate Judiciary Committee, 2003-11-18
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* " [http://www.pbs.org/flashpointsusa/20030715/infocus/topic_03/trans_pat_act.html Sacrifices of Security] ", Interview with Bryant Gumbel, PBS, 2003-07-15
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* [http://immigration.about.com/library/blBushSpeech71001.htm Remarks at the Swearing in of U.S. citizens] , Ellis Island, 2001-07-10
* " [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/arkansas/interviews/vietdinh.html Once Upon a Time in Arkansas] ", Interview with Peter Boyer, "Frontline", PBS, 1988

See also

*List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
*George W. Bush Supreme Court candidates

References

External links

* [http://www.bancroftassociates.net/ Bancroft Associates PLLC]
* [http://www.usdoj.gov/olp/vietdinh.htm Profile of Viet D. Dinh, Department of Justice]
* [http://www.law.georgetown.edu/curriculum/tab_faculty.cfm?Status=Faculty&Detail=204 Viet D. Dinh Professor of Law; Co-Director, Asian Law & Policy Studies Program at "Georgetown Law School"]
* [http://www.icasinc.org/bios/dinh_vd.html Biography of Viet D Dinh by the Institute for Corean-American Studies]
* [http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_208.html "News Corporation Elects Two New Directors," Press Release, April 16, 2004]
* [http://www.asianam.org/viet%20dinh.htm "At Home in War on Terror," "Los Angeles Times", September 18, 2002]