Elizabeth de la Vega

ELIZABETH DE LA VEGA, the author of United States v. George W. Bush et. al. is a native of Needham, Massachusetts, who graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. She now lives in Northern California. A multiple award-winning federal prosecutor, she began her career in public service in 1981 as a law clerk to U.S. District Court Judge Robert Renner, then became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Minneapolis where she prosecuted arsonists, bank robbers, white collar criminals and, in the first federal case of its kind, three Northwest Airlines pilots for “flying under the influence.” (The pilot had 20 rum and diet cokes.) In 1994, she became a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Branch Chief in San Jose, CA. where she prosecuted gang members involved in violent computer chip robberies as well as sophisticated high-tech criminals. Since her retirement in 2004, Ms. de la Vega has been writing legal and political articles for a variety of online and print publications including Tomdispatch.com, Truthout.org. The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Salon.com, and Mother Jones. Ms. de la Vega, a frequent guest on talk shows, has appeared on The Colbert Report, Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartmann, Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, the Tavis Smiley show, Laura Flanders RadioNation and countless others. Mother to five “kids” between the ages of 21 to 29, she is a witty, popular speaker who has been traveling the country discussing civic engagement, public integrity and justice-related issues with college and law students, peace groups and political organizations. If you want to hear what an experienced federal prosecutor has to say about public integrity and the role of the Department of Justice, about the presidential fraud that led to the war in Iraq, about the law of torture, warrantless wiretapping and illegal detention or, if you just want to know what it’s like to be a criminal trial attorney, Ms. de la Vega may be contacted at Elizabethdelavega@verizon.net .