Viet Dinh | |
|---|---|
 | |
| United States Assistant Attorney General for theOffice of Legal Policy | |
| In office May 31, 2001 – May 31, 2003 | |
| President | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Eleanor D. Acheson |
| Succeeded by | Daniel Bryant |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Đinh Đồng Phụng Việt (1968-02-22)February 22, 1968 (age 57) |
| Political party | Republican |
| Education | Harvard University (BA,JD) |
Viet D. Dinh (Vietnamese:Đinh Đồng Phụng Việt; born February 22, 1968) is a Vietnamese-born American legal scholar[1] who is on the board of Strategic Education.[2] He is also the Chief Legal and Policy Officer ofFox Corporation[3] where he leads all legal, government and regulatory and government affairs. He served as anAssistant Attorney General of the United States from 2001 to 2003, under the presidency ofGeorge W. Bush. Previously, Dinh was a partner at two leading law firms, Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Bancroft PLLC, the latter of which he founded.[4] Born inSaigon,[5] in formerSouth Vietnam, he was a major contributor to thePatriot Act and is a former member of the Board of Directors ofNews Corporation.[6][7][8]
Dinh was born inSaigon,South Vietnam. He and his familyemigrated to theUnited States in 1978, three years after Vietnam had fully embracedcommunism. They initially settled inPortland, Oregon, but moved toFullerton, California, two years later. Dinh joined the restarted debate team atFullerton Union High School under coaches Gary Reed and Jacqueline Reedy as a senior, who encouraged him to apply to Harvard University.[9]
Dinh graduatedmagna cum laude fromHarvard University in 1990 with a B.A. in government and economics. While at Harvard, he was a member of thePhoenix S.K. Club. He then attendedHarvard Law School, where he was a Class Marshal, anOlin Research Fellow in Law and Economics, andBluebook editor of theHarvard Law Review. He received hisJuris Doctor(J.D.)magna cum laude in 1993.
After graduating from law school, Dinh served as a law clerk to JudgeLaurence H. Silberman of theU.S. Court of Appeals for theD.C. Circuit and toU.S. Supreme Court JusticeSandra Day O'Connor during the 1994 Term.
Dinh has served as Associate Special Counsel to theU.S. Senate Whitewater Committee, as Special Counsel to SenatorPete V. Domenici for theImpeachment Trial ofPresident Bill Clinton, and as counsel to the Special Master in re Austrian and German BankHolocaust Litigation.
He is a member of theDistrict of Columbia andSupreme Courtbars.[10]
In late 2003, he was one of a group of prominent U.S. security officials hired byChoicePoint to advise the company on developing its governmenthomeland security contracts.
In 2006 he joinedKenneth Starr in challenging the constitutionality of theSarbanes–Oxley Act.[11]
Dinh currently serves on or has served on the boards of theNews Corporation, The Orchard Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ; ORCD), Liberty's Promise, theAmerican Judicature Society, the Transition Committee forCalifornia GovernorArnold Schwarzenegger, the Section on National Security Law of theAssociation of American Law Schools, theABA Section on Administrative Law,Revlon,LPL Financial, and McAndrews and Forbes Worldwide.
Dinh has taught atGeorgetown University Law Center, and became a partner atKirkland & Ellis in September 2016, when Kirkland hired all of the attorneys at the firm Dinh founded,Bancroft PLLC.[12][13] Dinh left Kirkland in 2018.[14]
Dinh's representative publications include "Defending Liberty: Terrorism and Human Rights" in theHelsinki Monitor, "Codetermination and Corporate Governance in a Multinational Business Enterprise" in theJournal of Corporation Law, and "Financial Sector Reform and Economic Development in Vietnam" inLaw and Policy in International Business. He publishedThe USA Patriot Act: Preserving Life and Liberty in 2008.[15]
In September 2006 Dinh received publicity for representingTom Perkins, a formerHewlett-Packard director involved in the company's pretexting scandal.[16] The emails between Perkins andLarry Sonsini, a corporate lawyer involved withBoard of Directors decisions for manycorporations were eventually forwarded to reporters and became public.[17]
Dinh, along with fellow News Corp. board member, fellow lawyer, and Corporation executiveJoel Klein, took over the investigation of theNews of the World phone hacking affair and related Corporation issues in July, 2011, from News International UK Chief Executive,Rebekah Brooks. Brooks' own possible involvement in thephone hacking scandal made her unable to continue as an impartial investigator.[18] Tom Perkins, also on the News Corp. board, was one who recommended Dinh for the investigation role.
It emerged after he was appointed to the board investigation that Dinh isgodfather to one ofLachlan Murdoch's children and a friend of Lachlan since 2003. Further, in 1992, a decade before he met Lachlan, Dinh wrote of his sister, held in a Hong Kong refugee camp, in theNew York Times, which led to NBC TV coverage and then to a series of articles in theSouth China Morning Post. ThePost was owned by Rupert Murdoch, and Dinh's articles there were credited with helping free his sister. The personal ties to Murdoch's interests and family were debated as Dinh took the role in the phone-hacking investigation.[19][20]
Dinh was mentioned as apotential nominee to theSupreme Court of the United States in aRepublican administration.[21]
Dinh served as Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice from 2001 to 2003, under the presidency ofGeorge W. Bush.[22] He was confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 96 to 1, with the sole No vote coming fromHillary Clinton.[23][24] As the official responsible for federal legal policy, Dinh worked with issues ofillicit 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 100district and 23appellate judges in his role representing theU.S. Department of Justice. After9/11, Dinh conducted a comprehensive review of DOJ priorities, policies, and practices, and played a key role in developing theUSA PATRIOT Act and revising the Attorney General's Guidelines, which govern federal law enforcement activities and national security investigations.[22]
Dinh has been a Professor of Law atGeorgetown University Law Center. His expertise lies inconstitutional law,corporations law, and the law and economics of development. He was also currently the 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 to 1999.
In September 2018, Dinh was appointed as Chief Legal and Policy Officer ofFox Corporation and would report directly to CEOLachlan Murdoch. Dinh is responsible for all legal, compliance, and regulatory matters, as well as oversight of government and public affairs.[25]
In April 2020, it was announced that Dinh and a handful of other Fox Corp. executives would forgo their salaries for six months as a result of theCOVID-19 pandemic.[26]
On August 11, 2023, Fox announced that Dinh would be leaving the company's employ and become an outside advisor.[27]
His family was separated in 1975 when his father, Phong Dinh, was being held as apolitical prisoner in the family's war-ravaged homeland after thefall of Saigon. He escaped in 1978, and remained a fugitive in Vietnam, when his mother, Nga ThuNguyễn, and his older siblings got on a boat with 85 other people and set out.[28] For 12 days Dinh was in a broken 15-foot-long boat, at one point with no food or water.[28] They encountered aThai fishing crew that gave them food and gas, and helped fix the boat and pointed them toward land. When they reachedMalaysia they were met by gunshots from a patrol boat; the Malaysians did not want them.[28] 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 anaxe and damaged the boat so as not to be sent back on it.[28] After six months as refugees in Malaysia, Dinh's family arrived at Oregon in November 1978. They pickedstrawberries for menial wages, sending money back to Dinh's father and a sibling hiding out in Vietnam.[29] AfterMount St. Helens erupted in 1980, the crop damage forced his family to relocate to Fullerton.[29][citation needed]
Dinh was honored by his high schoolalma mater when he was added to Fullerton's wall of fame. He will share that wall with an ideological opposite,David Boies, formerVice PresidentAl Gore's lawyer for theFlorida recount.
Dinh was reunited with his father in 1982. In 1992, he was reunited with one of his sisters at arefugee camp inHong Kong, a meeting filmed by thenewsmagazine showDateline NBC.
Dinh lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife, Jennifer Ashworth Dinh, and their three sons.[30]
board director Viet Dinh
He played a key role in drafting and implementing the USA PATRIOT Act, landmark legislation that provided the law enforcement and intelligence communities with necessary tools to fight the war against terrorism. Dinh also spearheaded the revision of the Attorney General's Guidelines, which govern the conduct of federal law enforcement activities and national security investigations.
Mrs. Dinh crept back to the boat with an ax and hacked at the vessel so it would sink, and the Malaysian government would allow them to stay.
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Assistant Attorney General for theOffice of Legal Policy 2001–2003 | Succeeded by Daniel Bryant |
