John Ashcroft: Profile of the Top Pro-Trump US Lawyer Ken Ofori-Atta Has Hired to Fight Deportation
YEN.com.gh looks at the profile of John Ashcroft, the lawyer leading Ken Ofori-Atta's attempts to prevent his deportation from the US
One of the leading narratives from 2025 was whether former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta would be extradited from the US to Ghana.
But there was a twist in the tale on January 7 when US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained Ofori-Atta.
Source: Getty Images
According to the former minister's lawyers, his detention resulted from challenges regarding the status of his continued stay in the US. There are some suggestions that his arrest was a special operation by ICE.
The Deputy Attorney General Justice Srem Sai also said Ofori-Atta was in the US illegally at the time of his arrest because his visa was revoked in June 2025.
In the course of discussions since his arrest, it has emerged that Ofori-Atta has turned to a top politically exposed lawyer in the US to fight his case.
Per the Attorney General of Ghana, the bealegured former government official has hired the services of John Ashcroft, a former Attorney General under the George W. Bush Administration.
Who is Ken Ofori-Atta's lawyer John Ashcroft?
According to the US Department of Justice, Ashcroft received his degree with honours from Yale in 1964, and he earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School in 1967.
In 1967, Ashcroft and his wife opened a law practice while he also taught at Southwest Missouri State University before entering politics in 1972, when he became the state auditor for Missouri.
He then became the assistant attorney general, serving from 1975 to 1977 before becoming the attorney general of Missouri, a position he held until 1984.
From 1985 to 1992, Ashcroft served as the governor of Missouri. He then returned to private practice at the law firm of Suelthaus and Kaplan P.C. until 1994. In 1995, he was elected as a senator representing Missouri.
President George Bush appointed Ashcroft Attorney General on December 22, 2000, making him the 79th Attorney General of the US. He resigned on February 3, 2005, after serving four years.
The legacy of republican politics has continued in his family with his son, John Robert Ashcroft, aka Jay Ashcroft, who is also a lawyer and served as the 40th Secretary of State of Missouri from 2017 to 2025.
Ashcroft's lobbying experience
Ashcroft has been noted by NBC News as the highest-ranking former Bush administration official to lobby for and invest in companies in the security space.
Nearly two years after he left the Justice Department, he built a lucrative consulting company helping security and other firms find business with federal agencies.
Source: Getty Images
In the years since, he has since Aschroft has also worked for a nation state in the instance where he provided crisis response and management, programme and system analysis, media outreach and advocacy for Qatar in 2017 after the Gulf state was singled out for supporting terror by President Donald Trump.
Qatar hired Ashcroft's law firm for 90 days, agreeing to pay it $2.5 million to help it comply with US money laundering and counterterrorism financing regulations.
John Ashcroft's past support of Donald Trump
Ashcroft has backed Trump's presidential ambitions, dating back to 2016 and stated a preference for his approach to international conflict.
For example, he said in a time of war, Trump would do everything he could to win and not engage for the sake of political objectives or diplomacy.
Trump would do everything he could to win and not engage for the sake of political objectives or diplomacy. He also told The Takeaway in 2017 that Trump was the biggest hope for the US. The former official also criticised protests from Democrat senators against Trump when he was first elected president.
What is at stake for Ken Ofori-Atta?
The government has made it clear that it is seeking accountability from Ofori-Atta.
Attorney-General Dr Dominic Ayine has said the government transmitted a formal extradition request to the US Department of Justice on December 10, 2025.
According to the Attorney-General, the state has fulfilled every legal requirement to ensure the former minister faces the 78 charges levelled against him.
The Office of the Special Prosecutor charged Ofori-Atta and seven others with 78 counts of corruption and corruption-related offences that relate to alleged corruption in the Strategic Mobilisation Ghana scandal.
Source: YEN.com.gh
