Nor­man Eisen is a senior fel­low at Brook­ings and a CNN com­men­ta­tor and chairs the watch­dog group CREW. He served as US ambas­sador to the Czech Repub­lic from 2011 to 2014, and as Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s ethics czar from 2009 to 2011. His writ­ing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wash­ing­ton Post, The Atlantic, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. The Last Palace is his first book.