Charles Lane, nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recently completed a 25-year career as a reporter, editor and columnist for The Washington Post, where he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. The author of three books on U.S. history and constitutional law, and a frequent panelist on television and radio, he has also been a foreign correspondent in Latin America and Europe, and editor of the New Republic.

His action against a notorious journalistic fraud at that weekly magazine became the subject of the acclaimed 2003 film, Shattered Glass. Since the Post, his writings have appeared in The Free Press and The Wall Street Journal. His current work at AEI centers on U.S. politics and public policy with an emphasis on the possibilities for reforming the U.S. asylum system.

Mr. Lane lives in the Washington area with his wife, Catarina Bannier; they have three adult children.