Christopher Swift is a partner in Foley & Lardner LLP’s government enforcement defense and investigations practice and the co-chair of the international and national security team. Drawing on three decades of legal, foreign policy, and national security experience, Swift serves as a trusted advisor, strategic counselor, and white-collar defense lawyer for clients managing complex international and national security challenges.

Swift represents clients before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, including routine foreign investment reviews and self-initiated national security investigations. He also counsels and defends clients in parallel national security proceedings involving the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, the Defense Counterintelligence & Security Agency, Team Telecom, and other US government agencies. Notable experience includes negotiating national security agreements and foreign ownership, control, or influence (FOCI) mitigation measures for companies supporting the US defense, intelligence, and law-enforcement communities.

Swift also defends clients in complex international investigations and government enforcement actions involving anti-money-laundering, economic sanctions, arms controls, dual-use exports, firearms and explosives, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, forced labor, human trafficking, and the application of international treaties under US domestic law. Other notable engagements include counseling clients on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the USA PATRIOT Act, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and US government investigations involving espionage or terrorism.

Prior to entering private practice, Swift served in the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), where he enforced sanctions targeting rogue states, terrorist syndicates, and weapons proliferators. While at OFAC, he supported a broad spectrum of civil and criminal investigations in conjunction with partners at the US departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Commerce as well as other US intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.

Swift was previously an adjunct professor of national security studies at Georgetown University and a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he served on the Russia study group and international law study group. His other notable professional experience spans research fellowships and policy roles with the Center for Strategic & International Studies, Freedom House, the University of Virginia’s National Security Law Center, the US Commission for International Religious Freedom, and a White House internship in the office of Vice President Al Gore.

Swift is an Eagle Scout and a graduate of The Derryfield School. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history and government from Dartmouth College, a law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, and a master of science and doctorate in politics and international studies from the University of Cambridge.