The Lawfare Podcast

Trump's Trials and Tribulations: Judge Cannon's Concerning Jury Instructions

23 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on March 21 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside. La...

Lawfare Archive: Allies, Episode 1: Faithful and Valuable Service

23 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From May 16, 2022: In order to tell you this story, we need to start at the beginning, just before the U.S. invasion. After 9/11, the CIA set their si...

Matt Perault, Ramya Krishnan, and Alan Rozenshtein Talk About the TikTok Divestment and Ban Bill

22 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we’re bringing you an episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem.Last week the House of Representatives ...

Chatter: From Right-Wing Radio to the Heart of the Never Trump Movement, with Charlie Sykes

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Charlie Sykes recently stepped down as host of the Bulwark Podcast. He's a regular commentator on MSNBC, and has written a number of books. He tells t...

Jawboning at the Supreme Court

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we’re bringing you an episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem.On March 18, the Supreme Court heard oral argumen...

Weaponizing the Dollar with Saleha Mohsin

20 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since World War II, the United States and its currency, the dollar, have come to play a central role in the broader global economy. And in recent deca...

Timothy Edgar and Paul Rosenzweig on the Volt Typhoon Cyber Intrusion

19 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Last May, Microsoft announced that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group, Volt Typhoon, appeared to be targeting U.S. critical infrastructure and en...

Judge McAfee Rules Fani Willis Can Stay

18 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Friday morning in Fulton County, Georgia, Judge Scott McAfee issued an opinion in the matter of the disqualification of District Attorney Fani Willis....

Rational Security: The “Sociopathic Nose Wrinkle” Edition

17 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott got together for the last time before Scott’s paternity leave to talk over the week’s big ...

Trump's Trials and Tribulations: Delays All Along the East Coast

16 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on March 14 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside. La...

Lawfare Archive: Paul Rosenzweig on Investigating American Presidents

16 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From November 10, 2018: With the firing of Jeff Sessions and his replacement with former U.S. attorney Matthew Whitaker, all eyes this week are focuse...

Tim Mak on Two Years of War in Ukraine

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Mak is the editor, writer, and entrepreneur behind the Substack site, The Counteroffensive, which covers the Ukraine-Russia war through personal s...

Chatter: Margaret Mead, Psychedelics, and the CIA with Benjamin Breen

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you’ve heard stories about the CIA’s experiments with drugs, particularly LSD, during the infam...

Six Counts Quashed in the Fulton County Case

14 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On March 13, Judge McAfee released an order quashing six counts in the Fulton County electoral interference indictment against former President Trump ...

Devin DeBacker and Lee Licata on the Biden Administration’s New Executive Order on Preventing Access to Americans' Bulk Sensitive Personal Data

13 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On February 28, the Biden administration issued an Executive Order (EO) entitled “Preventing Access to Americans’ Bulk Sensitive Personal Data and...

How Should Governments Use Deepfakes?

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Progress in deepfake technology and artificial intelligence can make manipulated media hard to identify, making deepfakes an appealing tool for govern...

Unpacking the Supreme Court’s Fourteenth Amendment Ruling

11 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On March 4, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. Anderson, holding that states cannot disqualify Donald Trump from appearing on the presidential ballot...

Rational Security: The “Alan and the Owl” Edition

10 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien joined Alan, Quinta, and Scott to discuss the week's big national secu...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: Pending Motions Piling Up in Florida

09 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on March 7 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside. Law...

Lawfare Archive: Judge John Bates on FISA in the News

09 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From September 28, 2019: At the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas, Benjamin Wittes sat down in front of a live audience with Judge John Bates, a...

The Hidden Alliance Between Tech and Government

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The practice of surveillance capitalism—the widespread private collection and commodification of personal data—is well understood. Less well under...

Chatter: Spy Disguises in Fact and Fiction with Jonna Mendez

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jonna Mendez advanced in her Central Intelligence Agency career to become Chief of Disguise despite the many institutional challenges to women's promo...

Bryan Choi on NIST's Software Un-Standards

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone agrees that the United States has a serious cybersecurity problem. But how to fix it—that's another question entirely. Over the past decade...

Lidsky and Koningisor on First Amendment Disequilibrium

06 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Executive branch constraints and the posture of the media have shifted in significant ways over the past two decades. Lyrissa Lidsky and Christina Kon...

The i-Soon Leaks with Winnona DeSombre Bernsen

05 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In mid-February, Chinese cybersecurity firm i-Soon appeared to suffer a massive data leak, which offered unprecedented insight into the operations of ...

How to Steal a Presidential Election

04 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As the 2024 presidential election approaches, a vital question is whether the legal architecture governing the election is well crafted to prevent cor...

Rational Security: The “Sir, This is a Wendy’s” Edition

03 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were joined by Molly Reynolds and (a prerecorded) Anna Bower to talk through some of the week’s big...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: The Supreme Court Will Hear Trump's Immunity Claim

02 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on February 29 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside....

Lawfare Archive: The SpaceX Launch and the Future of Space Law

02 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From May 26, 2020: On Wednesday, NASA and the SpaceX Corporation are scheduled to send astronauts back into outer space from U.S. soil for the first t...

Governing the Use of Autonomous Weapons and AI in Warfare with Lauren Kahn

01 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Following Hamas’s attacks on Oct. 7, the Israeli military retaliated with a relentless and devastating air war. By mid-December, Israeli forces had ...

Chatter: The Moon, Tides, and National Security with Rebecca Boyle

29 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We all know how superpower competition spurred one giant leap for mankind on the lunar surface in July 1969. But the story of how the Moon and its tid...

Sanctions Past, Present, and Future with OFAC Director Brad Smith

29 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past several decades, financial sanctions have become one of the most widely used tools in the U.S. foreign policy arsenal. And since Russia’...

Justin Sherman on Senator Wyden’s Investigation of Near Intelligence Inc.

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On Feb. 13, Senator Ron Wyden released a letter documenting an investigation his office has been conducting into the activities of Near Inte...

The Justices Figure Out that Internet Law Is Hard

27 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Supreme Court heard hours and hours of oral arguments today brought by a trade association called NetChoice against laws restricting content moder...

How Much Trouble is NATO Really In? with Scott R. Anderson

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At a South Carolina campaign rally on Feb. 10, former President Donald Trump told a crowd of supporters that while he was president he told “one of ...

Rational Security: The “Fast and the Furry-us” Edition

25 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott got together to talk over the week’s big national security news, including:“Is Revanchism ...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: Delays in Florida and D.C.

24 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on February 22 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawf...

Lawfare Archive: Alina Polyakova on the Poisoning of Alexei Navalny

24 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From September 15, 2020: Alexei Navalny is Russia's most prominent dissident, opposition leader, and anti-corruption crusader—and the latest such pe...

Breaking Down the Fireworks in Fulton County

23 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, handed up an indictment in August of former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants for their eff...

Chatter: President Biden’s Foreign Policy with Alex Ward

22 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Joe Biden took office with a big ambition: To repair America’s reputation abroad and set the country on a new path, where foreign policy would be cr...

Intimidation of State and Local Officeholders with Maya Kornberg

22 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As a new report on the intimidation of state and local officeholders from the Brennan Center for Justice points out, “The January 6 insurr...

The Authoritarian Playbook in 2025

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The advocacy group Protect Democracy last month issued an updated version of its report entitled, “The Authoritarian Playbook.” The new repor...

Joel Braunold on the State of the Gaza Crisis

20 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The conflict in Gaza is headed toward a critical juncture. Israeli political leaders have signaled their intent to assault Rafah, one of the final saf...

Lawfare Archive: Christopher Moran on ‘Company Confessions: Secrets, Memoirs, and the CIA’

19 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From December 10, 2016: This week at the Hoover Book Soiree, Jack Goldsmith interviewed Christopher Moran, a professor at the University of Warwick, o...

Rational Security: The “Licking the Cow” Edition

18 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were once again joined by co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes to talk through the week's big national security news, i...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: A Wild and Woolly Week

17 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s another episode of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” this one recorded before a live audience on Zoom on Friday afternoon. It’...

Lawfare Archive: Jim Baker on FISA Errors

17 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From April 10, 2020: Jim Baker served as general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was also the counsel for the Office of Intelligen...

Itsiq Benizri on the EU AI Act

16 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The EU has finally agreed to its AI Act. Despite the political agreement reached in December 2023, some nations maintained some reservations about the...

Chatter: Life and Death in Ukraine with Journalist Christopher Miller

15 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In February 2022, Russia launched a full scale invasion into Ukraine in the largest attack on a European country since World War II. This invasion did...

Jonathan Cedarbaum and Matt Gluck on the NDAA’s Cyber Provisions

15 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, is considered must-pass legislation and is increasingly becoming the only reliable vehicle for nation...

Constitutional Law, International Law, and the State

14 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Many international law scholars are skeptical about the efficacy of international law to shape state behavior—and even international law's reality a...

‘God, Guns, and Sedition’ with Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware

13 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Unfortunately, Americans are certainly not strangers to far-right terrorism. From the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston, to th...

A Victory for Guatemalan Democracy

12 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On January 15, Bernardo Arévalo took office as the new president of Guatemala. The transfer of power had been far from assured: after Arévalo triump...

Rational Security: The “Fecund Season” Edition

11 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Alan made his long-awaited return to the podcast for a (brief, so savor it) reunion with Quinta and Scott to talk over...

Lawfare Archive: Julian Mortenson on 'The Executive Power'

10 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From April 13, 2019: Julian Mortenson, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, is the author of a remarkable new article entitled "Article II ...

Trump's Trials and Tribulations: Supreme Court Oral Arguments in the Trump Disqualification Case

09 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On February 8, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson, on the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling that former President Donald Trump ...

Chatter: The Global Citizenship Industry with Kristin Surak

08 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Some people call it "investor citizenship" while others label it a "passport for sale" scheme. Either way, the last few decades have seen the global c...

Molly Reynolds and Eric Ciaramella on the Ukraine Supplemental

08 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's been a wild and woolly week on Capitol Hill with respect to the border, Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and a lot of other stuff. On Wednesday, the...

The D.C. Circuit Rejects Trump's Presidential Immunity Claim

07 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On February 6, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected former President Donald Trump's appeal of his presidential immunity defense in the federal g...

Prosecuting Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Armed Conflict

06 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Among the many horrific stories emerging out of the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza are instances of sexual and gender-based violence. It’s an ...

Riana Pfefferkorn and David Thiel on How to Fight Computer-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Material

05 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of the dark sides of the rapid development of artificial intelligence and machine learning is the increase in computer-generated child pornography...

Rational Security: The “Meatlovers” Edition

04 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to talk over the meaty week of national securi...

Trump's Trials and Tribulations: Waiting for the D.C. Circuit

03 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on February 1 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfa...

Lawfare Archive: Law and the Soleimani Strike

03 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From January 6, 2020: On Friday, the Lawfare Podcast hosted a conversation on the wide-ranging policy implications of the U.S. strike that k...

Sam Moyn and Ilya Somin on Disqualifying Trump Under Section 3

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear argument in Trump v. Anderson, former President Donald Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s ...

Chatter: The Long History of US Foreign Disaster Aid, with Julia Irwin

01 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

American aid to global victims of natural disasters might seem like a relatively new phenomenon, perhaps linked to the Marshall Plan and other major p...

James A. Heilpern on Why Section 3 Reaches Presidents

01 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

We're approaching the historic oral argument of the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson. That's the case over whether Donald Trump is disqualified...

‘Find Me the Votes’ with Dan Klaidman and Michael Isikoff

31 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During a late night press conference in August, an Atlanta-area prosecutor announced a sprawling criminal case against Donald Trump and his allies for...

War Powers and the Latest U.S. Intervention in Yemen with Brian Finucane, Jack Goldsmith, and Matt Gluck

30 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

U.S. military operations against Houthi rebels in Yemen have escalated rapidly in recent weeks, culminating in a number of major strikes aimed at degr...

Discussing FinCEN with Director Andrea Gacki

29 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Everyone recognizes sanctions as one of the United States’ most powerful tools of economic statecraft. But few realize that much of the information ...

Rational Security: The “CesTar” Edition

28 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, just Scott was joined for a Bizarro-world episode with guests Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Senior Fellow Molly ...

Trump's Trials and Tribulations: What Is Going On in Fulton County?

27 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on January 25 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfa...

Lawfare Archive: War Powers and the Biden Administration

27 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From March 12, 2021: President Joe Biden has conducted military strikes in Syria, has articulated legal theories under which the series of strikes wer...

Government Use of Open-Source Information

26 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In front of a live audience at the Knight Foundation's INFORMED conference in Miami, Florida, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke with Hon. ...

Chatter: "A City on Mars," with Dr. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

25 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Outer space is back in style. For the first time in decades, NASA is sending astronauts back to the moon. Millionaires are exiting the atmosphere on a...

‘Democracy Awakening’ with Heather Cox Richardson

25 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Heather Cox Richardson is the author of the book “Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America,” which looks at the evolution of American de...

Jim Dempsey on Standards for Software Liability

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Software liability has been dubbed the “third rail of cybersecurity policy.” But the Biden administration’s National Cybersecurity Strategy dire...

Shoba Pillay and Jennifer Lee on the SEC SolarWinds Enforcement Action

23 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The fallout from the SolarWinds intrusion took a new turn with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision to file a cybersecurity-re...

Waxman and Ramsey on Delegating War Power

22 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There is much debate among academics and policy experts over the power the Constitution affords to the president and Congress to initiate military con...

Rational Security: The “Three-Ring Circus” Edition

21 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Rational Security, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds to talk t...

Trump’s Trials and Tribulations: Still Waiting on the D.C. Circuit

20 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on January 18 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfa...

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...