John Ratcliffe

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John Ratcliffe brings 20 years of professional legal and governmental experience to the Ashcroft Group and the Ashcroft Law Firm. Mr. Ratcliffe’s expertise includes government investigations, regulatory compliance, corporate governance issues, white collar fraud and complex commercial litigation.

As U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas under President George W. Bush in 2007 and 2008, Mr. Ratcliffe successfully directed thousands of federal prosecutions involving terrorism, violent crime, drug trafficking, child exploitation, public corruption, corporate fraud, mortgage fraud, illegal immigration and capital murder cases. Mr. Ratcliffe managed a team of more than 100 federal prosecutors and support personnel in 6 district offices and financially operated a $12 million annual budget.

Mr. Ratcliffe’s high profile cases included one of the nation’s largest immigration worksite enforcement actions; the prosecution of an international shipping company that resulted in the largest ever criminal fine in U.S. history for deliberate vessel pollution; and serving as a special prosecutor in one of nation’s first post 9/11 terrorism financing cases. Mr. Ratcliffe served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Subcommittee on Terrorism and National Security, where he helped to revise national anti-terrorism strategies.

Since leaving the Department of Justice, Mr. Ratcliffe has provided both legal and consulting services to public and private clients on bio-terrorism, homeland security, immigration, and complex, white collar criminal matters, including internal investigations and independent monitoring on compliance matters. Mr. Ratcliffe serves on the Texas A&M University’s TEEX Advisory Board, where he advises an organization that provides homeland security, emergency response and public safety training to more than 200,000 people annually from all 50 states and from 54 foreign countries.

Prior to his government service, Mr. Ratcliffe was the managing partner of a Dallas law firm where he tried high profile cases involving complex commercial, business, insurance, healthcare and products liability matters. Mr. Ratcliffe is board certified in Civil Trial Law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, and he has served as Adjunct Professor of Law at both SMU and Texas Wesleyan University School of Law.  Mr. Ratcliffe is presently serving as the Mayor of Heath, Texas, a community of more than 8,000 residents, where he resides with his wife and two daughters.