PERSON: Victoria Toensing

diGenova & Toensing

Partner

Victoria Toensing, founding partner of the Washington D.C. law firm diGenova & Toensing, LLP, has extensive experience in all three branches of government solving problems for individuals, corporations, trade associations, and other organizations. She is an internationally-known expert on white collar crime, terrorism, and national security and intelligence matters.

Toensing has successfully litigated both civil and criminal cases for three decades. Since April 2013, Toensing has represented Gregory N. Hicks, former DCM in Libya and one of the Benghazi Whistleblowers.

Toensing represented “Jane Doe Thompson” in a successful lawsuit against the CIA. “Thompson,” the first woman Chief of Station in Latin America, reported her male deputy for wife-beating and disciplined other subordinates for misconduct ranging from public drunkenness to threatening to kill security guards. Thompson sued when she became the subject of an Inspector General investigation based on these subordinates’ false claims. In 1997, Toensing was named Special Counsel by the U.S. House of Representatives to probe the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In 2007, Toensing was retained by the New York State Senate to investigate then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer in the Troopergate matter.

As Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department from 1984-1988, she established Justice’s Terrorism Unit. She managed the federal government’s efforts to bring to justice the terrorists responsible for the hijacking of TWA 847, the bombing of Pan Am 830, and the takeover of the cruise ship Achille Lauro. For her aggressive pursuit of terrorist Mohammed Rashid she was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine (April 21, 1991).

Also in her Justice Department position, Toensing supervised the Defense Procurement Fraud Unit, savings and loan industry fraud, cases dealing with nuclear industry regulation, securities fraud, and fraud and bribery in the banking industry. She testified frequently before Congressional Committees.

While Chief Counsel for Senator Barry Goldwater, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1981-1984), Toensing was instrumental in winning passage of two important bills: (1) to protect the identities of intelligence agents, and (2) to protect certain classified information from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

As Assistant U.S. Attorney in Detroit from 1976-1981, she developed the argument used before the Supreme Court to support profile searches at airports of suspected drug couriers.

Toensing is a frequent guest on national television programs discussing politics, criminal justice, national security, and terrorism, including C-Span, Fox News, 60 Minutes, Face the Nation, Good Morning America, 20/20, FOX, CNN, Lehrer News Hour, Today Show, NPR, and Nightline. She was legal analyst for America’s Talking for the O.J. Simpson trial, and has co-hosted CNBC’s Equal Time and Rivera Live! She was legal analyst for MSNBC for the impeachment and Senate trial of President Clinton.

Toensing received her B.S. from Indiana University and graduated Cum Laude from the University of Detroit Law School.