Join me as I explore the intersection of national security, law, and human rights. From my years as a Navy SEAL and federal prosecutor to my work today as an immigration and civil rights attorney, I share short, sharp insights on the issues shaping America’s future. Subscribe to get new thoughts delivered straight to your inbox and your favorite podcast app.
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Hey guys, it's Nate Charles.
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I'm back with an extra thought of the day today.
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This is a thought of the day supplemental start date 2025-08-19.
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A little homage to my Trekkies out there.
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Anyway,
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I'm making this additional thought of the day today to announce that we're doing
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something pretty exciting here at Charles International Law.
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I said a few weeks ago that these thoughts of the day were sort of an experiment.
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And that experiment has actually proven to be pretty valuable to people.
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People seem to like these relatively short format videos, these blog posts.
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So we're going to make it a thing.
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And in fact, we're even going to publish it as a podcast.
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So you'll be able to download the audio from these videos as a podcast for you to
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listen on whatever podcasting platform you prefer.
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We hope that you will.
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We hope you enjoy it.
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For those of you who are new to this channel,
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new to my my vlog and new to my podcast,
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I just want to introduce myself a little bit for those of you who don't know my
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background and what I represent.
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Again, my name is Nathan Charles.
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I'm an attorney.
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I grew up in Pennsylvania.
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I went to the United States Naval Academy and graduated in 2001.
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In fact, just a few months before 9-11.
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I was fortunate enough to be selected for training to become a Navy SEAL by my time
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at the Naval Academy.
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I was one of about 16 guys from our class of just under a thousand to be selected
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for that training pipeline.
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I was in that training on 9-11.
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And in fact, 9-11 was clearly one of the most successful.
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Most significant dates in my life, as it was for a lot of people.
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I spent the next six years, six and a half years, actually, on regular active duty as a U.S.
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Navy SEAL fighting in places like Afghanistan,
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but also Colombia and a lot of other places in the Middle East.
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Doing train,
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advise and assist operations in those places where there wasn't active combat going
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on.
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I got out with the hope of becoming an attorney like my father,
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who is the former district attorney in Lebanon County and now a sitting judge on
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the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas.
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I did.
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I got into law school at American University in Washington, D.C.
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But while I was there in Washington, D.C., I also got picked up for a job at the U.S.
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Defense Department at the Defense Direction Agency,
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working on programs to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction,
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proliferation and use by terrorist organizations.
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And so I kind of went right back into my former role as a special operator, working with U.S.
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Special Operations Command to develop war plans to address WMD threats,
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which was a lot of fun and something that I never really anticipated doing in my
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life,
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but ended up enjoying quite a bit.
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While I did that, I went to law school at night.
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When I got done with my law degree and I took the bar,
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I clerked for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania for a year.
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Now, while I was calling for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, I went into the reserves.
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I started working for the reserve SEAL team down at Virginia Beach on my weekends
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and significant other periods of time and actually got pulled back onto active duty
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three times over the next 10 years.
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So my time in special operations was not over when I got off of regular active duty.
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In fact, it was just getting started.
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One of those mobilizations,
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I went down to SEAL Team 6 in Virginia Beach and was served in a staff position at
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SEAL Team 6 for another year and ended up deploying back to Afghanistan all over
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again.
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Ironically, I was in Afghanistan.
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When I left Afghanistan for the last time,
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it was just a few days short of the 10-year anniversary of the date that I first
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deployed to Afghanistan.
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So my time involved in combat operations in Afghanistan spanned over a decade.
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Anyway,
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after my time,
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after I would demobilize from from SEAL Team Six,
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I went to go work for the U.S.
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Department of Justice in the National Security Division,
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making,
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you know,
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making use of my extensive national security experience.
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I went to go work for the counterintelligence and export control section of the U.S.
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Department of Justice.
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At the time I joined, it was still called the counter espionage section.
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That was a very interesting job.
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I worked there for about five years working on counterintelligence issues,
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but even more working on counterproliferation issues.
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Again,
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going back to my time with the Department of Defense,
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working on prosecution,
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prosecuting arms dealers and people who were dealing in technology that could
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support weapons of mass destruction programs.
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I left that job in 2020, right as COVID was starting to become a problem.
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Not really the greatest time to switch jobs,
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but I took advantage of a program that sent me to rural Alaska for about six
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months.
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I went up to rural Alaska for about six months and worked as a prosecutor up there
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providing criminal law enforcement and prosecution to an underserved rural
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community in Alaska.
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When I came back from Alaska,
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I actually mobilized back to active duty again and served as the deputy commander
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of the crisis action team for the U.S.
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Navy dealing with the COVID crisis.
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Again,
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taking advantage of some of my experience with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency,
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where my work touched on biological warfare threats.
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I got to put some of that some of that knowledge to use to help mitigate the COVID crisis.
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Right about the time that I demobilized from the COVID crisis in 2021,
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I started my own law firm.
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Not entirely sure what I was going to do with my with my practice,
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but quite sure that I wanted to start my own business and practice law the way that
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I knew it should be practiced and to apply a level of rigor and intelligence and
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and.
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sophisticated advocacy that I knew I was capable of to real-world clients who
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honored me by hiring me.
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Shortly after I hung my shingle and started my law firm,
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I was approached by a group of former special operations personnel and former
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intelligence officials that I had tangentially worked with over the previous 20
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years and who told me,
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Look,
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we're pretty sure that Afghanistan is going to fall a lot faster than the
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government is letting on.
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And so we're starting a nonprofit organization to help get these guys out and
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provide them support,
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provide support to the people that we have been training,
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advising,
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assisting in Afghanistan for the previous few decades.
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Sure enough, they were 100% correct.
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Kabul fell in a matter of hours when the government was calling for it to fall within months.
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And all of a sudden,
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overnight,
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there was a group of former special operations personnel,
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former intelligence agents,
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and former people who had supported our war effort in Afghanistan for the previous
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20 years who were political refugees.
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Those people turned to me and they said, what do you know about immigration law?
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I said, very little, but I'm a pretty quick study.
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And that's exactly what happened.
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I ended up pursuing additional training,
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quite a bit of self-study,
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but also some formal training through the Mennonite Central Committee back in my
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hometown,
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near my hometown of Lebanon,
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Pennsylvania,
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and became an immigration attorney and became an immigration attorney specifically
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working on
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the types of cases that these Afghans were going through,
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where there was a connection between national security,
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human rights,
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and high-risk asylum cases.
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And that's been the focus of my practice ever since.
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We do some additional things.
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We've worked on some other human rights,
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some other civil rights cases,
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other cases where large corporations have really been victimizing
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Individuals and I found my passion.
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I found my passion at the intersection of human rights and national security.
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And and I love to help people resettle in the United States when they have faced
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legitimate humanitarian crises overseas.
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I love what I do.
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This podcast is about all those things.
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It's about national security.
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It's about the law.
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These these videos are going to be me.
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expounding on my thoughts on national security,
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on what's going on with the political situation in the United States,
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but all sort of orbiting around those concepts of national security and
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humanitarian rights.
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I'm honored to have you along on this journey with me.
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I don't entirely know where this is going to go, but I love doing it.
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I love posting these videos.
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I love coming up with this content.
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I love digging into these issues and doing deep dives on
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on things so that I really understand it as an attorney and so that I can help the
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public understand it as conscientious Americans and as voters.
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I just get a real kick out of doing this.
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I'm really happy to have you here and I'm hoping that you will subscribe to this,
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this blog,
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subscribe to my sub stack,
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follow me on social media and download these podcasts so that we can end up having
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a conversation about what the future of America looks like and what it should look
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like and how we shape the world around us to become what the world that it should
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be.
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Thank you.
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I'm grateful for your, for your, uh,
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participation in this with me.
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I'm grateful to have you as an audience,
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and I look forward to your comments on everything that we do here.
Get full access to The Rule of Law Brief at natecharles.substack.com/subscribe
