The Lawfare Podcast

Lawfare Archive: About That Border Wall

20 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From January 28, 2017: President Trump kicked off the first foreign policy crisis of his new administration by signing an executive order mandating th...

Justin Sherman on the FTC Settlement with Location Data Broker X-Mode

19 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a settlement with location data broker X-Mode Social. X-Mode collects over 10 billion location d...

Chatter: Nuclear Launch Authority in Myth and Reality, with Hans Kristensen

18 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Lloyd Austin's hospitalization and delayed communication about it have spurred much commentary and questions about the role of the secretary of defens...

Protecting Civilians in Gaza and Beyond with Marc Garlasco and Emily Tripp

18 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, the Department of Defense released its first-ever policy on civilian harm reduction. But as Marc Garlasco recently wrote in Lawf...

Chimène Keitner on South Africa, Israel, and the Genocide Convention

17 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Chimène Keitner is the Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law at the University of California at Davis. She is a leading international law auth...

Greg Johnsen and Scott Anderson on the Fight Against the Houthis

16 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the last two months, Houthi militants have waged more than 27 attacks against merchant shipping and U.S. and partner forces in the Red Sea, the G...

Lawfare Archive: What Happens When We Don’t Believe the President’s Oath?

15 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From March 4, 2017: Yesterday, Just Security and the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law hosted Benjamin Wittes ...

Rational Security: The “Courtroom Drama” Edition

14 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett to discuss the week’s big national...

Trump's Trials and Tribulations: The 14th Amendment Goes to the Supreme Court

13 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on January 11 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfa...

Lawfare Archive: Gregory Johnsen Answers "What is a Houthi?"

13 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From September 26, 2015: On this week’s Lawfare Podcast, Gregory Johnsen outlines the current state-of-play in Yemen. Johnsen, who is a writer-...

Trump’s Civil Fraud Trial

12 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On January 11, 2024, Donald J. Trump arrived in a New York courtroom for closing arguments in the civil fraud case against the former president, his c...

Chatter: “The Day After” and Dad with A. B. Stoddard

11 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Brandon Stoddard was one of the most accomplished executives in broadcast television history. In his career at ABC, he helped bring to the small scree...

Yuval Shany and Amichai Cohen on the Israeli Supreme Court's Bombshell

11 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Israeli Supreme Court—in the middle of the war in Gaza—handed down a decision that amounts to a kind of death blow to Prime Minister Bibi Neta...

Debriefing on the Presidential Immunity Argument at the D.C. Circuit

10 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Yesterday, a panel of judges at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in former President Trump's appeal of Judge Chutkan's denial of...

Michael Gottlieb on that Giant Judgment Against Rudy Giuliani

09 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Michael J. Gottlieb is a litigation partner at the Willkie law firm. He is a long-time national security lawyer, served in Barack Obama's White House ...

Presidential Immunity at the D.C. Circuit

08 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On Tuesday, Jan. 9, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is set to hear oral argument in United States v. Trump. Trump, indicted in D.C. for alleged crim...

Rational Security: The “Dry January” Edition

07 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower to talk through the week’s big national se...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: A New Year's Update

06 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on January 4 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfar...

Lawfare Archive: The War in Yemen (and Congress’s Response)

06 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From December 11, 2018: Last week, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Gregory Johnsen, a former member of the U.N. Security Council Panel of Experts on Yem...

The Marshall Islands’ Sweeping Climate Adaptation Plan with Jake Bittle

05 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, at COP28 in Dubai, the Republic of the Marshall Islands unveiled its sweeping national climate adaptation plan, the multi-year product of ...

Chatter: Lessons from the Decade of Mass Protests, with Vincent Bevins

04 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the protests in Brazil initially focused on bus fares to the protests in Hong Kong seeking to stop an extradition bill to the protests across the...

Israel, Gaza, and the Law of War

04 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The conflict between Israel and Hamas is provoking heated debates about which side is in the right. Each accuses the other of things like war crimes. ...

How Are the TikTok Bans Holding Up in Court?

03 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In May 2023, Montana passed a new law that would ban the use of TikTok within the state starting on January 1, 2024. But as of today, TikTok...

Ask Us Anything About 2023

02 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to our annual “Ask Us Anything” episode, a hallowed Lawfare tradition. Every news alert in 2023 seemed to bring new questions. But fear no...

Lawfare Archive: Hardcore Dan Carlin

01 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From September 27, 2014: A few weeks ago, Benjamin Wittes began listening to a podcast called Hardcore History, which is the brainchild of a fell...

Rational Security: The “Unboxing Day” Edition

31 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott rang in the New Year with co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes by discussing some listener-submitted topi...

Lawfare Archive: The Future of Warfare

30 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From February 9, 2019: From the increasing development of autonomous weapons systems to the expansion of the traditional battlefield to cyber and oute...

Sam Lebovic on the Espionage Act's Unlikely History

29 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Former President Trump’s prosecution for mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate has brought an old law back to the front pages—...

Chatter Archive: Spy Movies with John Sipher

28 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we're taking time off for the holidays, so we reached into the Chatter archives for one of our favorites.In this episode from January ...

America’s First War On Terror with Fergus Bordewich

28 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Between 1865 and 1872, the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan conducted a reign of terror across the former Confederate States, harassing, intimidati...

Amanda Tyler on Rahimi and Taking Guns Away From Loyalists

27 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Supreme Court last month heard oral arguments in United States v. Rahimi, in which the Court will decide the constitutionality of a federal l...

The Court at War

26 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Supreme Court during World War II issued some of the most notorious opinions in its history, including the Japanese exclusion case, Korematsu v. U...

Rational Security: The “Arose Such a Clatter” Edition

25 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Cyber Fellow Eugenia Lostri to t...

Year-End Event, Part Two: A Conversation with the Lawfare Team

24 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's part two of our Lawfare year-end event. Yesterday, we brought you the headliner conversation with Adam Kinzinger. Today, it's three panels of Law...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: Removal, Not to Federal Court but From the Colorado Ballot

23 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” this one recorded on December 21 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. This ...

A Conversation with Adam Kinzinger

23 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The other day before a live audience, we had our Lawfare year-end extravaganza. It was two hours long, so we've broken it up for purposes of the podca...

Three CISA Senior Advisers on Secure by Design

22 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Secure by Design means different things to different people. As part of Lawfare’s ongoing project to understand what Secure by Design might mea...

Chatter: Secrecy and Transparency in Early America, with Katlyn Carter

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Modern representative democracy was born in darkness. Transparency in representative bodies can spur unintended consequences for freedom, while secrec...

The Colorado Supreme Court Has Its Day

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In an end-of-the-day ruling on Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court struck Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot on grounds that he was disqu...

Jeff Horwitz on Broken Code and Reporting on Facebook

20 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2021, the Wall Street Journal published a monster scoop: a series of articles about Facebook’s inner workings, which showed that employees within...

A Conversation with Bryan Vorndran, Assistant Director of the FBI Cyber Division

19 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Bryan Vorndran is Assistant Director of the FBI's Cyber Division, a position he's held since around March 2021. Prior to that, he was the special agen...

Joel Braunold on Gaza and What Comes Next

18 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The conflict in Gaza may be approaching a turning point. An increasingly frustrated Biden administration has reportedly told Israeli officials that th...

Rational Security: The “A Friend in Need is a Friend Security Guaranteed” Edition

17 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk through the week’s big natio...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: Mr. Smith Goes to the Supreme Court, not the D.C. Circuit

16 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's another edition of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on Thursday before a live audience of Lawfare Material Supporters. This week...

Lawfare Archive: Jim Baker and Carl Ghattas on Section 702

16 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From July 29, 2017: On December 31, 2017, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act will sunset. While U.S. officials insist that the provision authorize...

Fossil Fuel Flops at COP28

15 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

According to the resolution signed at the end of the 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on ...

Chatter: The Ghost Army of World War II with Journalist Rick Beyer

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the summer of 1944, a group of artists, visual designers and sound engineers--all of them GIs--began a series of secret operations in occupied Fran...

A New United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism

14 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ben Saul is the Challis Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney, Australia, whose internationally recognized work has focused ...

Argentina’s New President: An Anarcho-capitalist in the Pink House

13 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You may have heard of Javier Milei, Argentina’s new president, thanks to some of his eccentricities, like his five cloned dogs or his reliance on a ...

Preston Marquis, Molly Reynolds, and Benjamin Wittes on the Two House FISA Sec. 702 Bills

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

FISA Section 702 is set to expire on Dec. 31, 2023. Last week, two bills were marked up by two different House committees—one in the House Judiciary...

The Complicated Politics of Ukraine Aid

11 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Senate last week failed to move forward the national security supplemental, which includes a large package of aid for Ukraine. The holdup? Migrati...

Rational Security: The “Based in Eunuchs” Edition

10 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, co-hosts Quinta and Scott were joined by co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes to talk over the week’s big national secur...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: A Fulton County Hearing, Filings in D.C., and 14th Amendment Updates

09 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's another edition of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on Thursday before a live audience of Lawfare Material Supporters. Lawfare S...

Lawfare Archive: Matt and Ken Speak at Hoover on Autonomous Weapons

09 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From November 6, 2013: On October 25, 2013, the Hoover Institution held a day-long media colloquium out at Stanford University for a first-rate group ...

Graham Allison on Henry Kissinger

08 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger passed away. To assess his legacy, Jack Goldsmith sat down with Gra...

Chatter: World War I and Intelligence in American Memory, with Mark Stout

07 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

World War I was a seminal event for American national security and foreign policy, as the United States deployed nearly two million soldiers and sailo...

Preparing for War with Bradley Onishi

07 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Watching the footage of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Bradley Onishi thought to himself, “If I hadn’t left evange...

Bill Wright on the AI Executive Order

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A little over a month ago, President Biden issued a sweeping executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) covering a broad set of AI issues, such a...

Two Courts Rule on Presidential Immunity

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On Friday, two courts weighed in on the question of presidential immunity. First, Judge Chutkan of the DC District Court ruled that Trump is not immun...

Matthew Tokson on Government Purchases of Private Data

04 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Is the Fourth Amendment doing any work anymore? In a forthcoming article entitled “Government Purchases of Private Data,” Matthew T...

Rational Security: The “We’re Moving to Microsoft” Edition

03 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, a contentedly full post-Thanksgiving Scott and Quinta sat down with two Lawfare colleagues—Senior Editor and Brookin...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: Gag Orders, Telephones, and Other Stuff

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's another edition of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on Thursday before a live audience of Lawfare Material Supporters. Lawfare E...

Lawfare Archive: Jim Baker on AI and Counterintelligence

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From September 25, 2018: The United States has become the global leader in both defense and private-sector AI. Inevitably, this has led to an environm...

Anna Bower Critiques the Georgia Bureau of Investigation

01 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Anna Bower is a Legal Fellow at Lawfare and our Fulton County Correspondent, and has been digging into the weird events in Coffee County in the afterm...

Chatter: Coups and Counterintelligence with Peter Strzok

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Strzok is a former United States Federal Bureau of Investigation agent. He was the Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Di...

Comparing Civilian Casualty Tolerance in the Israel-Hamas War to the War Against ISIS with Mark Lattimer

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Israel’s military response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre has raised deep concern from international legal observers and the general public. The IDF’...

Will Generative AI Reshape Elections?

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard a great deal over the last year about generative AI and how it’s going to reshape ...

U.S. Arms Transfers to Israel, with Brian Finucane and Josh Paul

28 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, President Biden announced that his administration would ask Congress for “an unprecedented ...

Tiana Epps-Johnson on Lawsuits and the Big Lie

27 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tiana Epps-Johnson is the Executive Director of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, an organization which provides technical and financial assistance ...

Lawfare Archive: Building a Bridge Between 20th Century Law and 21st Century Intelligence

26 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From November 7, 2015: Last week, George Washington University and the CIA co-hosted an event entitled Ethos and Profession of Intelligence. As p...

Lawfare Archive: The Jerusalem Embassy Opening and Protests in Gaza

25 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From May 19, 2018: The past week saw the culmination of a major shift in U.S. policy as the United States formally opened its embassy in Jerusalem. Ye...

What Disqualifying Trump From the 2024 Ballot Would Mean for Election Law

24 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the past few weeks, there have been several notable developments in lawsuits seeking to disqualify Donald Trump from the 2024 election under Sectio...

Lawfare Archive: Samuel Moyn on “How Warfare Became Both More Humane and Harder to End"

23 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From October 22, 2016: This week, Samuel Moyn, Professor of Law and History at Harvard University, closed out a one-day conference on “The Next...

Chatter: The JFK Assassination and Conspiracy Culture, with Gerald Posner

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sixty years ago today in Dallas, Texas, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John Kennedy. For almost as long, various (often contradictory) co...

The Pigeon Tunnel: Errol Morris Interviews John le Carré

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The great documentary filmmaker Errol Morris is best known for films such as “The Thin Blue Line” and “The Fog of War.” His latest film, ...

Brooks, Wohlforth, and Keohane on the Strength of the United States in International Politics

21 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of the Cold War, there was no question that the United States was the most powerful country in the world—militarily, economically, and te...

Why Pakistan is Deporting Afghan Refugees with Madiha Afzal

20 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past few weeks, the country of Pakistan has pursued an aggressive wave of deportations targeting thousands of Afghan refugees, some of whom h...

Rational Security: The “Talking Turkey” Edition

19 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were jointed by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to talk over some of the week's big n...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: What Is Judge Cannon up to Now?

18 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” the last one before Thanksgiving, when we will take a week off. Lawfare Editor-in-Chi...

Lawfare Archive: Turnover and Turmoil Inside the State Department

18 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From September 7, 2019: This summer has been a tumultuous one inside the U.S. State Department. In August, the department’s Office of the Inspector ...

Assistant Secretary Matt Axelrod on Enforcing Export Controls

17 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The United States has long set restrictions on the export of certain sensitive goods and technologies, particularly to strategic rivals. But over the ...

Chatter: The Empty Grave of Comrade Bishop with Martine Powers

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In October 1983, Maurice Bishop, the revolutionary leader and prime minister of Grenada, was executed alongside seven others amid a power struggle in ...

Data Brokers and the Sale of Data on U.S. Military Personnel

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On November 6, researchers at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy issued a report on “Data Brokers and the Sale of Data on...

Deepfakes and Human Subjects Protection with Aimee Nishimura

15 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The use of deepfakes—a form of artificial intelligence known as deep learning to create manipulated or generated images, video, and audio—is on th...

Ryan J. Reilly on the Sedition Hunters

14 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Three weeks ago, an amazing new book came out about the prosecutions stemming from the Capitol Siege of Jan. 6, 2021. It’s called "Sedition Hunters:...

Anatomy of a Somali Drone Strike with Nick Turse

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In August, the U.S. Africa Command, aka AFRICOM, reported that it had killed 13 al-Shabaab fighters in southern Somalia. Though the U.S. government sa...

Rational Security: The ”Alan Revoir” Edition

12 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott bade a temporary farewell to Alan and spent one last afternoon (for a few months, anyway) digging int...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: Trump Ungagged

11 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's another edition of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on Nov. 9 before a live audience of Lawfare Material Supporters. To talk thr...

Lawfare Archive: Luke Murry and Daniel Silverberg on National Security in Congress

11 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From March 2, 2019: It's hard to open a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing about the dysfunction and partisan polarization affecting ...

Lawfare Archive: Jack Goldsmith on Obama's War Powers Legacy

10 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From November 8, 2014: Last month, Jack gave a talk at the Hoover Institution on President Obama's war powers legacy. It's a remarkable address: hard-...

Chatter: Rachel Maddow on her book "Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism"

09 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When she's not hosting The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow has been diving deep into the history of fascism in America. First on her podcas...

Fionnuala Ní Aoláin on Counterterrorism and Human Rights

08 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Fionnuala Ní Aoláin completed a productive six-year tenure as the UN Special Rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights last week. Among other ...

Mike Johnson’s National Security Agenda

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

You probably already know that Rep. Mike Johnson is the new Speaker of the House. What you may not know is that every single one of the issues on his ...

Data Brokers, Public Records, and Violence with Justin Sherman

06 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the debate about data privacy and harms, one issue has not received adequate attention by the press or in policy conversations relative to the seve...

Rational Security: The “Regulatory Cage Match” Edition

05 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by Lawfare Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri to tackle some of th...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: Judge Cannon, Section 3, and a Fulton County Update

04 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded live on Zoom before an audience of Lawfare Material Supporters. Lawfare Editor...

Lawfare Archive: Stephanie Leutert on the Other Southern Border

04 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From June 26, 2018: With the media and political commentators focused on family separation at the U.S.-Mexico border, few are paying attention to how ...

The West Bank and the Israel-Hamas War

03 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Since Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the Israel-Hamas war has largely been fought in Gaza, a small strip of land along the border of the Medite...

Chatter: The British Empire's Territorial Peak, 100 Years Later, with Matthew Parker

02 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The British Empire was already buckling under its own internal tensions in the 1920s. One hundred years later, historian and author Matthew Parker use...

A Criminal in the White House: How It Might Work and What It Might Mean

02 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A few weeks ago, an organization that works in the democracy protection space asked Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes and Lawfare Senior Editor ...