A Conversation with John Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security

Join the National Security Law Association, Military Law Society, and Veteran Law Students Association for a conversation with John Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice.

About Mr. Demers

John Demers became Assistant Attorney General for National Security on February 22, 2018. In that capacity, he leads the Department of Justice’s efforts to combat national security-related cyber-crime, terrorism, and espionage, to enforce export control and sanctions laws, to use the authorities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and to conduct national security review of foreign investments.  In November 2018, he was selected to lead the Attorney General’s China Initiative, put in place to counter the Peoples Republic of China’s persistent and aggressive economic espionage, trade secret theft, hacking, and other related crimes. 

Prior to rejoining the Department, Mr. Demers was Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at The Boeing Company, where he held several senior positions including in Boeing Defense, Space, and Security and as lead lawyer and head of international government affairs for Boeing International.

From 2006 to 2009, he served on the first leadership team of the National Security Division, first as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General and then as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Law & Policy. In addition, Mr. Demers has served in the Office of Legal Counsel and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.  From 2010 to 2017, he taught national security law as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Demers worked in private practice in Boston and clerked for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He graduated from Harvard Law School and the College of the Holy Cross.