Speakers

After many years as a trial and appellate lawyer, David O. Stewart became a bestselling writer of history and historical fiction.  His histories have explored the writing of the Constitution, the gifts of James Madison, the outrageous western expedition and treason trial of the mysterious Aaron Burr, and the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.  His histories have won the Washington Writing Award for best book of the year, the History Prize of the Society of the Cincinnati, and the William H. Prescott Award of the National Society of Colonial Dames of America.  His first novel, The Lincoln Deception, about the John Wilkes Booth Conspiracy, was called the best historical novel of 2013 by Bloomberg View.   Sequels include The Wilson Deception, set at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and The Babe Ruth Deception, which follows the Babe’s first two years with the Yankees.

Has taught economics at various universities in the US and Mexico and was Director of the Center for North American Studies at American University 2014-2015. In a professional career that spans over 40 years, Suárez-Mier successively combined working in the financial system and Foreign Service of Mexico as well as for transnational financial institutions, with teaching economics at the Technological Institute of Mexico and the universities of New Mexico, Georgetown and American in Washington DC. He did his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, was the Chief of Staff of the Governor of the Bank of Mexico and the top economic diplomat in Washington at the time of the negotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the U.S., Canada and Mexico. More recently (2007-09), he represented the Attorney General of Mexico in the U.S. when the Mérida Initiative, a plan for both nations to jointly fight transnational criminal organizations, was negotiated and approved by the U.S. Congress. He has written extensively on issues related to Latin America’s political economy and security issues in North America and writes a weekly column in Mexico City’s newspaper Excelsior and monthly at the Asian Times of Hong Kong and appeared in countless interviews for radio and TV with Al Jazeera, BBC, Bloomberg, CCTV, CNN and Reuters.  

Chief J. Thomas Manger has been the Chief of Police in Montgomery County, Maryland, since February 2004.  He began his law enforcement career in 1977 with the Fairfax County (Virginia) Police Department.  He rose through the ranks to become Chief of Police in 1998.  During his tenure in Fairfax County, Chief Manger received numerous awards including the Silver Medal of Valor.  Chief Manger is credited with reorganizing and expanding the Police Department’s Community Policing efforts.  His commitment to the highest ethical standards for policing and his enactment of new policies to increase departmental accountability earned significant recognition from the community, including the Fairfax County Human Rights Commission Award for outstanding contributions, and the N.A.A.C.P.’s Community Service Leadership Award.  In 2012, Chief Manger was inducted into the Montgomery County Human Rights Hall of Fame.

Chief Manger is a graduate of the F.B.I. National Academy, the National Executive Institute, the Police Executive Leadership School at the University of Richmond, and the Senior Executive Institute at the University of Virginia, and he has also completed Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School’s Program for State and Local government.

Andrew “Art” Arthur serves as Resident Fellow in Law and Policy for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, DC-based research institute that examines the impact of immigration on American society.

He began his legal career through the Attorney General’s Honors Program as a clerk to Administrative Law Judge Joseph E. McGuire in the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer at the United States Department of Justice, Executive Office for Immigration Review. After a two-year clerkship with Judge McGuire, he received a second Honors Program appointment as a Trial Attorney in the San Francisco District Counsel’s Office, and later the Baltimore District Counsel’s Office, of the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

In 1999, he was promoted to the INS’s General Counsel’s Office in Washington DC, first as an Associate General Counsel, and later as an Assistant General Counsel and Acting Chief of the INS National Security Law Division. In the General Counsel’s Office, Mr. Arthur supervised attorneys handling cases involving espionage, terrorism, and persecutors. He also advised the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, and INS Commissioner on issues relating to national security.

In July 2001, Mr. Arthur left the INS to become a Counsel on the House Judiciary Committee, where he performed oversight of immigration issues. After five years at House Judiciary, he was appointed to the immigration bench, serving for eight years as an Immigration Judge at the York Immigration Court in York, Pennsylvania.

At the beginning of the 114th Congress, Judge Arthur left the bench and came back to Capitol Hill, where he served as Staff Director of the National Security Subcommittee at House Oversight and Government Reform before taking retirement from federal service in September 2016.

He is a graduate of the University of Virginia (BA 1988), and of the George Washington University School of Law (JD 1992).