Mark David Wallace (born December 31, 1967) is an American businessman, former diplomat, and lawyer who has had a variety of government, political, and private sector posts. He served in several positions during the administration of President George W. Bush, including as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations for UN Management and Reform. As of 2019, Wallace was the CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), and the Turkish Democracy Project.
Biography Wallace attended the University of Miami, where he received both his bachelor's degree and J.D. He was married to Nicolle Wallace, a political commentator who was President George W. Bush's communications director and as senior advisor to Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential bid.
Career Prior to government service, Wallace was a practicing commercial litigation attorney in Miami, Florida as well as General Counsel of the State of Florida's City of Miami Emergency Financial Oversight Board. He began his political career under Florida Governor Jeb Bush and was active in his election campaigns in 1994, 1998 and 2002.
In 2000, Wallace played a key role working for then Governor George W. Bush's legal team in the decisive Florida recount in 2000 where he was counsel to the campaign in Florida and was a spokesman for the legal team in various national media outlets. Wallace was portrayed in the HBO movie Recount for his role in the disputed presidential contest.
During President Bush's administration from 2001 to 2003, Wallace served in a variety of federal government general counsel positions. At the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), he oversaw and managed all aspects of the FEMA Office of General Counsel, and acted as counsel to the FEMA-led New York and World Trade Center recovery effort in the wake of the 2001 September 11 attacks. He also was the general counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), during the INS' transition from the DOJ into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as part of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 reorganization. After the reorganization, Wallace was the first principal legal advisor to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services for the Department of Homeland Security.
In 2003, Wallace joined President George W. Bush's reelection campaign as the deputy campaign manager. In addition to his day-to-day responsibilities of assisting in the management of the national campaign, Wallace was the campaign's lead liaison to the Republican National Convention, the campaign's representative in debate negotiations, and led the campaign's debate team at each of the presidential and vice presidential debates.
In February 2013, Wallace and his wife publicly supported legal recognition for same-sex marriage in an amicus brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court.
UN ambassadorship In 2005, President Bush nominated Wallace to serve in the United States Department of State, United States Mission to the United Nations as Ambassador, U.S. Representative for UN Management and Reform, and Alternative Representative of the United States to Sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The Senate confirmed his appointment in 2006.
During his tenure as Ambassador to the United Nations, Wallace most notably sought to uncover corruption in UN programs in such places as North Korea and Burma. He exposed the "Cash for Kim" corruption scandal in North Korea. He revealed, among other issues, that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had funneled millions of dollars in hard currency to North Korea without assurance that North Korea's dictatorship would use the money to help the North Korean people instead of diverting it to illicit activities, including the country's illegal nuclear program. Wallace accused the program of being "systematically perverted for the benefit of the Kim Jong Il regime," and the media drew parallels between UNDP's corruption in North Korea and the Oil-for-Food scandal in Iraq several years earlier. The Wall Street Journal wrote that the finding of the Cash for Kim investigation "vindicates" Wallace, "who led the charge for transparency at UNDP."
In addition, he led the U.S. delegation's "no" vote against using UN money to pay for the 2009 "Durban II" conference, describing it as "noxious to my country and a disgrace in the International Community." He further opposed the 2008–2009 UN Biennium Budget for its "ad hoc" and "piecemeal" approach that ensured spending increases in the UN general budget that far outpaced the general budget increases of member states.
While at the UN, Wallace also launched the UN Transparency and Accountability Initiative that focused on eight areas of reform related to member states' access to UN financial documents, ethics, financial disclosure, oversight mechanisms, IPSAS accounting standards and administrative overhead.
Upon his departure from the U.S. State Department, The Wall Street Journal editorial board compared Wallace to a list of "distinguished" Americans who tried to make the United Nations live up to its original ideals, including Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jeane Kirkpatrick and John Bolton. The opinion piece noted that although Wallace was unpopular with some officials who didn't want to risk their engagement with North Korea over corruption, "he's the one who had it right."
2008 presidential campaign During the 2008 presidential campaign, Wallace was a senior advisor to Senator John McCain. In that role, he led the debate preparation team for Senator McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. After the debate, The New York Times commented that Governor Palin's debate performance against Democrat Joe Biden "exceeded expectations in this highly anticipated face-off, though those expectations were low after she had stumbled in recent television interviews." Wallace was portrayed in the HBO movie Game Change by actor Ron Livingston for his work on the McCain campaign.
Policy work, writing, and media appearances Wallace is the chief executive officer of both United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and the Counter Extremism Project (CEP). He is a frequent media contributor and op-ed author and has been featured in news outlets around the world, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, USA Today, TIME, The Huffington Post, New York Post, CNBC, Asharq Al-Awsat, Okaz, Le Parisien, and Die Welt.
United Against Nuclear Iran Wallace is chief executive officer of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a bipartisan non-profit dedicated to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. Wallace founded UANI in 2008 alongside the late Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross. In August 2015, former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman became chairman of the group. Under Wallace, UANI and its advisory board has grown to include prominent former government officials and lawmakers including former U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend, former Mossad Chiefs Meir Dagan and Tamir Pardo, former head of the German Intelligence Service Dr. August Hanning, former head of the British MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove, and former governors Jeb Bush and Bill Richardson, among others. In August 2013, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif described UANI as "the biggest active lobby against Iran." The following month, in his debut speech before the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was further critical of UANI, labeling it "extremist," and proposed a new group called "World Against Violence and Extremism" – in reference to United Against Nuclear Iran.
Since its founding, Wallace has led UANI in launching campaigns warning more than 1,000 companies of their Iran business ties, following which, dozens of multinational firms such as General Electric, Huntsman, Caterpillar, Ingersoll Rand, Porsche, Hyundai, Fiat, Royal Dutch Shell, Terex and Siemens ended their business dealings in Iran. Wallace and UANI led the first successful campaign to convince a Chinese company to end its work in Iran. After various discussions between Wallace, UANI and Huawei, the company announced that it was scaling back its business in Iran. The decision by Huawei and the role of UANI was prominently featured in the news media including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Reuters. In The Wall Street Journal piece, Wallace was quoted saying of the decision: "This is a significant milestone. For the first time a major Chinese business is pulling back from Iran in the face of mounting international scorn for Iran's brutal regime."
Wallace and UANI launched a campaign calling on SWIFT to terminate its relationships with Iran's banks and financial institutions, arguing that SWIFT was in violation of U.S. and EU sanctions by affording Iranian banks BICs and access to SWIFT and, therefore, access to the international financial system. Subsequently, SWIFT announced that it would comply with new EU sanctions and cease providing messaging services to sanction designated Iranian banks. "It's a good positive step forward and it will cause real difficulties for the regime," said Wallace. SWIFT's decision and UANI's campaign were extensively covered in media outlets around the world.
UANI and Wallace pursued a successful "Auto Campaign" that has focused on the lucrative Iranian automobile industry. UANI has called on international automobile manufactures to leave Iran including, among others, Nissan, Fiat, Peugeot, GM and Hyundai.
Wallace and UANI have authored and supported a variety of federal and state legislative and regulatory initiatives designed to enhance Iran's economic isolation. Their model legislation has been incorporated into both federal bills and state bills, including the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISADA), the Iran Transparency and Accountability Act (ITAA), the Iran Financial Sanctions Improvement Act of 2012 (H.R. 4179 as introduced by Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Congressman Brad Sherman), California's Iran Contracting Act of 2010 (AB1650) and New York's Iran Divestment Act of 2011 (A08668) among others. In May 2012, Wallace along with Meir Dagan, August Hanning, R. James Woolsey, Lord Charles Guthrie and Kristen Silverberg co-authored an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal calling for "the most robust sanctions against Iran in history" as a means "for the international community to truly isolate the regime." Wallace described a proposed strategy to implement such sanctions during testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs on May 17, 2012, by proposing legislation focused on four areas, namely Banking, Insurance and Reinsurance, Disclosure and Debarment and Shipping (UANI BIDS) in order to achieve an "economic blockade" of Iran.
In an October 2012 profile on UANI in NBC News by chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel and Robert Windrem, Wallace stated, "Our message is clear: You have to choose between doing business with our checkbook or their checkbook—with the reality being we're the biggest checkbook in the world. Notwithstanding the purported demise of the United States, we're still the biggest checkbook in the world."
Wallace and UANI advocated against the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement between the P5+1 and Iran. In the New York Times, Wallace said, "Americans have been presented with a false choice: diplomacy or war," in a cynical effort to frame opponents of the deal as warmongers.