Kip Wainscott

Kip Wainscott is a senior advisor at the Cyber Policy Center, where he directs programs and initiatives for the Global Digital Policy Incubator to promote policymaking that reinforces democratic values, universal human rights, and the rule of law in the digital realm.

Kip served in the White House under President Obama as Senior Director of Cabinet Affairs and Senior Advisor to the Domestic Policy Council, where his portfolio focused on issues related to justice, opportunity, and technology. He also was Senior Counsel in the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice, where he worked on the development and coordination of technology policy and other initiatives of high priority to the Attorney General. After leaving the administration, Kip helped launch CrowdJustice, a digital platform for engaging online communities in support of public interest litigation. Since 2017, he has led democracy programming and policy engagement in Silicon Valley for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.

Before entering government, Kip was an attorney in a leading political and election law practice, where he advised on presidential nomination procedures, voting laws, and represented clients in litigation and ethics matters. For the 2012 election cycle, Kip was counsel and national delegate director for the Obama-Biden reelection campaign.

Kip was a 2019 Policy Fellow at Stanford’s Digital Civil Society Lab, where he supported research and co-authored a paper examining how civil society organizations can better protect their digital rights through policy advocacy. He has also authored chapters for two books on the subject of government and political ethics. He is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, and serves on the Advisory Council for the Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics at the George Washington University.