Professor Swinton is a Trial Attorney with the United States Department of Justice, National Security Division, Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, where his work focuses on investigations and prosecutions related to counterintelligence, cyber, export control, and foreign agent matters. Previously, he was Senior Trial Counsel in the Federal Programs Branch of the Civil Division, where he defended the Executive Branch in challenges to federal statutes, regulations, and agency actions in cases involving matters of constitutional and administrative law. He also served as Assistant Counsel to Vice President Joseph Biden from September 2012 through March 2013. Among other cases, Professor Swinton has represented the United States in cases involving a First Amendment challenge to the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act, a First and Fifth Amendment challenge to communications-management units designed to house Bureau of Prison inmates convicted of terrorism-related offenses, and matters involving the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and head-of-state immunity for foreign officials. He has also litigated cases involving challenges to the accessibility of agency programs pursuant to the Rehabilitation Act and requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act. Before beginning his practice with the Department of Justice, Professor Swinton clerked for Magistrate Judge William C. Beamon in the District of Wyoming, District Judge Jon Phipps McCalla in the Western District of Tennessee, and Judge Ronald Lee Gilman in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He has been a member of the Georgetown Law adjunct faculty since 2015.
