John F. Sopko focuses his practice on congressional and federal investigations. For over thirty years he has been involved in oversight and investigations either as a prosecutor, congressional counsel or senior advisor to the federal government.
Mr. Sopko joined Akin Gump after twenty years of experience conducting congressional investigations in both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. He served on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the Select Committee on Homeland Security and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Most recently, Mr. Sopko was Chief Counsel for Oversight and Investigations for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce for the 110th Congress. In that capacity, he supervised numerous investigations with regard to matters relating to many areas within the committee’s jurisdiction with special emphasis on entities and matters regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Consumer Product Safety Commission. Mr. Sopko has also served as the first Democratic General Counsel and Chief Oversight Counsel for the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, working on a number of homeland security and counter terrorism investigations and issues.
During his tenure on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Mr. Sopko conducted investigations on subject matters ranging from health care insurance to the production of complex weapons systems. From 1982 to 1997 some of the more significant inquiries he conducted for the chairman and members of the subcommittee include a multi-year investigation related to health insurance; organized crime infiltration of unions; critical infrastructure protection; potential spread of weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere; enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; cyber security; international drug interdiction programs; counter-terrorism policies and procedures; government procurement fraud and the illegal exports of dual use technologies.
Following his work for the Senate, Mr. Sopko was recruited by the Secretary of the Department of Commerce to manage the department’s response to multiple congressional, grand jury and press inquiries which provided him the unique experience of representing numerous public officials in connection to a number of congressional investigations. While at the Department of Commerce, Mr. Sopko was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement for the Bureau of Export Administration, as well as Deputy Assistant Secretary for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Mr. Sopko has extensive litigation experience as both a state and federal prosecutor. As a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Organized Crime and Racketeering Section he conducted numerous long-term grand jury investigations and prosecutions against organized crime groups. He was the lead attorney in the first successful federal RICO prosecution for the entire leadership of an American mafia crime family. In 1982, Mr. Sopko was awarded the Special Commendation Award for Outstanding Service to the Criminal Division and the Special Achievement Award for Sustained Superior Performance for the Department of Justice in 1980.
Mr. Sopko began his professional career as a state prosecutor in Dayton, Ohio with the Montgomery County prosecutor’s office where he tried numerous misdemeanor and felony cases. He was an adjunct professor at American University’s School of Justice where he received the Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Teaching Award in 1984 and the Professor of the Year Award in 1986.
He received his B.A., cum laude, in Economics and Sociology in 1974 from the University of Pennsylvania and his J.D. in 1977 from Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He is a member of the District of Columbia and Ohio bars.