Mary B. McCord
Executive Director
Mary McCord is Executive Director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) and a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. At ICAP, McCord leads a team that brings constitutional impact litigation at all levels of the federal and state courts across a wide variety of areas including First Amendment rights, immigration, criminal justice reform, separation of powers, combating political violence, and protecting democratic processes.
McCord was the Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2016 to 2017 and Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for National Security from 2014 to 2016.
Previously, McCord was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for nearly 20 years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Among other positions, she served as a Deputy Chief in the Appellate Division, overseeing and arguing hundreds of cases in the U.S. and District of Columbia Courts of Appeals, and Chief of the Criminal Division, where she oversaw all criminal prosecutions in federal district court.
McCord served as legal counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Task Force 1-6 Capitol Security Review appointed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. She is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Nonresident Fellow at the George Washington University Program on Extremism. She is also a member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on National Security and the Law, and is on the Editorial Board of Just Security. She previously served as a statutorily designated amicus curiae for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review.
McCord has written about the rule of law, separation of powers, domestic extremism, unlawful militia activity, public safety, and other topics for publications including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg Law, The Atlantic, Slate, Lawfare, and Just Security. She has appeared on NPR, PBS, MSNBC, MS NOW, CNN, ABC, and other media outlets. She is an MS NOW legal and national security contributor, and co-host of the award-winning podcast, “Main Justice” and formerly, “Prosecuting Donald Trump.”
McCord received the Oliver White Hill Courageous Advocate Award from the Virginia Trial Lawyers’ Association in 2018, based on her work with ICAP litigating against white supremacist and private militias that attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
McCord graduated from Georgetown University Law School and served as a law clerk for Judge Thomas Hogan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
