Beth Wilkinson

In May 2020, Federal Judge Emmet G. Sullivan hired Wilkinson to represent him to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and defend his decision to refuse the United States Department of Justice's request to drop criminal charges against Michael Flynn, subsequent to Flynn's guilty plea. The Washington Post described Sullivan's hiring of an attorney as a "rare step that adds to this criminal case’s already unusual path".

In a letter addressed to Congress on February 10, 2016, Wilkinson announced that she was representing four of Hillary Clinton’s closest aides: Cheryl Mills, Heather Samuelson, Jake Sullivan, and Philippe Reines.

Wilkinson is known for successfully arguing for the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. She has also been a critic of unfair administration of the death penalty. In April 2012 she was hired as outside counsel by the Federal Trade Commission to lead an antitrust inquiry into Google.

In 2009, Wilkinson was elected to partnership in the prominent New York City law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP. According to the firm's website, Wilkinson's practice will focus on general litigation. In September 2018, NBC News reported that Wilkinson was assisting Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh in his response to the allegation that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford while they were in high school.

She resigned her position at Fannie Mae along with three other senior executives on September 19, 2008, after the troubled mortgage giant was taken over by the government.

In 2006, Fannie Mae recruited Wilkinson as parts of its effort to rebuild its relationship with regulators after accounting scandals and complaints about its corporate culture. Her compensation at Fannie Mae was not disclosed when she was hired. She served as Fannie Mae's executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary from February 2006 until September 2008.

She married David Gregory, the former moderator of NBC News' Meet the Press in June 2000. They have three children. Her husband practices Judaism while she is a Methodist. Wilkinson was previously married to Timothy Ogilvie, a Washington, DC consultant. The couple had no children and later divorced. She is a close personal friend of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

After completing her four-year obligation to the U.S. Army, Wilkinson became a full-time Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in 1991, prosecuting various kinds of cases including narcotics, white collar offenses, and violent crimes. Among her cases was the first United States prosecution of a bombing of an airliner—the 1994 case against Colombian narcoterrorist Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera, whom she successfully prosecuted for the bombing of an Avianca civilian airliner as well as murder of U.S. citizens and other drug-related crimes.

Wilkinson is a daughter of Judith and Robert Wilkinson of Richland, Washington. Her father is a retired Navy submarine captain and served as the director of the nuclear spent-fuel project in Hanford, Washington. Wilkinson graduated with a B.A. from Princeton University in 1984 and later graduated with a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Beth Ann Wilkinson (born September 19, 1962) is an American lawyer from Washington, D.C.. She is a founding partner of Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz, a specialty trial and litigation law firm. Formerly, she was a partner in the New York City-based law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where she worked in the firm's Washington, D.C. office focusing on white collar criminal defense.