Charles Lewis, a national investigative journalist for nearly 30 years, is a bestselling author who has founded or co-founded three nonprofit organizations in Washington, including the Center for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org). Lewis left a successful career as a producer for the CBS News program 60 Minutes and began the Center, which under his leadership published roughly 300 investigative reports, including 14 books, from 1989 through 2004, honored more than 30 times by national journalism organizations.

In 2003, for example, in February the Center posted secret draft “Patriot II” legislation and in October posted all of the known U.S. contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Windfalls of War first identified that Halliburton had received the most money from those contracts, and won the George Polk Award. A co-author of five books, including national bestseller The Buying of the President 2004, Lewis was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1998 and received the PEN USA First Amendment award in 2004.

He has been a Ferris Professor at Princeton University, a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University and is currently distinguished-journalist-in-residence and founding executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University in Washington, D.C.