The Lawfare Podcast

Information Operations, Then and Now

24 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Arbiters of Truth, our podcast on our online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Camille François, the chi...

The FBI, Part 1

23 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This is the latest installment in our ongoing series of historical inquiries with U.S. and Five Eyes intelligence agencies. Earlier episodes have feat...

China's Civilian Army with Peter Martin

22 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bryce Klehm sat down with Peter Martin, a defense policy and intelligence reporter at Bloomberg. Peter is the author of the new book, "China's Civilia...

Stephen Wertheim and Sara Moller on the Past, Present and Future of NATO

21 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was founded in 1949 and quickly became the main way that the United States guaranteed the security of We...

Lawfare Archive: Jessica Stern on Radovan Karadzic

20 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From the Lawfare Archive, February 19, 2020: Jessica Stern, who served on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, has a remar...

Lawfare Archive: Julia Ioffe and Ian Bremmer on the Trump-Putin Summit

19 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From the Lawfare Archive, July 17, 2018: U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Helsinki for their first one-on-one s...

Putin and Biden Meet in Geneva

18 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

President Biden met with President Putin in Geneva on Wednesday. There was a lot of press and dueling press conferences, with both presidents having t...

A TikTok Tick Tock

17 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

TikTok has rapidly become one of the most popular apps for teenagers across the world for dancing, lip-syncing and sharing details about their lives. ...

Rep. Seth Moulton and Matt Zeller on Securing Visas for U.S. Partners in Afghanistan

16 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The United States is quickly approaching its September deadline for a full military withdrawal from Afghanistan. As the U.S. completes its withdrawal,...

The Justice Department, Congress and the Press

15 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A spree of stories has emerged over the last week or so that the Justice Department under the prior administration obtained phone and email records of...

Jonathan Rauch on the Constitution of Knowledge

14 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Public discourse is in bad shape these days. We all yell at and cancel each other on social media and college campuses, and politicians—especially t...

Daniel Richman and Sarah Seo on Law Enforcement Federalism

11 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel Richman and Sarah Seo are professors at Columbia Law School, and they are co-authors of a recent article on Lawfare entitled, "Toward a New Era...

The Empire (Facebook) Strikes Back (at the Oversight Board’s Trump Decision)

10 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve listened to this show, you've probably read a fair number of news stories—and maybe even listened to some podcast episodes—about the F...

Michel Paradis on Sexual Assault and Reforming the Military Justice System

09 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For years, Congress and the Defense Department have debated how best to handle the pernicious problem of sexual assault in the military. Now, a bipart...

Alicia Wanless on What's Wrong with the Discussion of Influence Operations

08 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alicia Wanless is the director of the Partnership for Countering Influence Operations at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and she has a...

A Digital Contact Tracing Retrospective

07 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's been more than a year since the first contact tracing and exposure notification apps for the novel coronavirus have appeared, and the apps have n...

The Christchurch Call, Two Years On

20 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In March 2019, a shooter carried out two mass killings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, livestreaming the first shooting on Facebook. Two mont...

Russia Through the Spymaster’s Prism

19 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Recent events have shown that Russian intelligence efforts against the United States and the West have continued since the end of the Cold War and hav...

Celia Aniskovich and Pete Strzok Talk Spy Affair

18 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Remember Maria Butina? She was the Russian graduate student at American University and gun enthusiast who was arrested for being an unregistered forei...

After Trump, Episode 6: Getting It Done

17 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the final episode of “After Trump,” the six-part limited podcast series based on the book, "After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency," by Bob...

Garland and Mayorkas on Domestic Violent Extremism with No Bull

14 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas testified on domestic violent extremism before th...

The Disinformation Nextdoor

13 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Arbiters of Truth, the Lawfare Podcast's series on our online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with the journ...

Jerusalem on the Brink

12 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The situation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories is growing heated. Protests over the forced dislocation of Palestinian residents of East Jerus...

Ignatius and Goldsmith on the Story of Kash Patel

11 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David Ignatius, a columnist for the Washington Post, recently ran a lengthy column about the machinations of Kash Patel in the executive branch during...

After Trump, Episode 5: Independent Justice

10 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the fifth episode of "After Trump," the six-part limited podcast series based on the book, "After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency," by Bob Bau...

Dara Lind on Immigration and the Southern Border

07 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Over its first 100 days in office, the Biden administration has faced a difficult set of policy challenges at America's southern border, ranging from ...

The Facebook Oversight Board Rules on Trump

06 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The wait is over. Four months after Facebook indefinitely banned Donald Trump from its platform following the Capitol riot, the Facebook Oversight Boa...

The Return of Rudy

05 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rudy Giuliani played a central role, both in President Trump’s response to the Mueller investigation and in the drama in Ukraine that eventually led...

Niall Ferguson on Catastrophes and How to Manage Them

04 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

2020 was a remarkable year in so many ways, not least of which was the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects. Why did so many countries bungle their respo...

After Trump, Episode 4: Prosecuting a President

03 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the fourth episode of “After Trump,” the six-part limited podcast series based on the book, "After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency," by Bo...

The State of the U.S.-Turkey Relationship

30 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When President Biden entered office, he inherited a bilateral relationship with Turkey that was strained to the limits by the growing independent stre...

Israel’s “Cyber Unit” and Extra-legal Content Take-downs

29 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Odds are, you probably haven’t heard of the Israeli government’s “Cyber Unit,” but it’s worth paying attention to whether or not you live in...

Alperovitch and Iftimie Talk Response to Russia and China

28 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Biden administration has now responded to two major cyberattacks—one from Russia, the SolarWinds attack, and the other from China, the so-called...

Explosions, Expulsions and Explanations of Russian Active Measures

27 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Russian GRU Unit 29155 is in the news again. Czech authorities pin the blame on it for a series of explosions in 2014 that killed two people, and ...

After Trump, Episode 3: Obstruction and Pardons

26 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the third episode of “After Trump,” the six-part limited podcast series based on the book, "After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency," by Bob...

DHS Leadership Talk Cybersecurity

23 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Maurer is a senior counselor for cybersecurity to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Jennifer Daskal serves as deputy general counsel at DHS focu...

The Challenges of Audio Content Moderation

22 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Arbiters of Truth, the Lawfare Podcast’s miniseries on our online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic talked to Sean...

Spy Writing in the Real World

21 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Last week for the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy an...

'National Security, Leaks and Freedom of the Press'

20 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Goldsmith sat down with Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, and Geoffrey Stone, the Edward H. Levy Distinguished Service Profess...

After Trump, Episode 2: Enemy of the People

19 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the second episode of "After Trump," the six-part limited podcast series based on the book, "After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency," by Bob Ba...

Biden Announces a Military Withdrawal from Afghanistan

16 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, President Biden announced a full withdrawal of all U.S. military personnel from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, an announcement that ...

Twitter, Facial Recognition and the First Amendment

15 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Arbiters of Truth, the Lawfare Podcast’s miniseries on our online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Jam...

Identifying and Exploiting the Weaknesses of White Supremacist Groups

14 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A lot of people are expressing anxiety about white supremacist violent terrorism, yet in a new Brookings paper entitled "Identifying and Exploiting th...

The Continuing Threat of White Extremism

13 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From the countless attacks on ethnic and religious minorities that have taken place in recent months to the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill, acts of vi...

After Trump, Episode 1: Follow the Money

12 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this special edition of the Lawfare Podcast, we're turning over our feed to the new podcast series, "After Trump," produced by Lawfare in collabora...

Alex Vindman on the Escalation in Ukraine

09 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tensions are heating up between Russia and Ukraine, seven years after the seizure by the Russians of the Crimean Peninsula and the incursions into Eas...

The Truth About Conspiracy Theories

08 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

If you’re listening to this podcast, the odds are that you’ve heard a lot about QAnon recently—and you might even have read some alarming report...

A Royal Crisis in the Kingdom of Jordan

07 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This past weekend, an exceptional series of events rocked the normally quiet nation of Jordan as an apparent schism between members of the country's r...

Natan Sachs on the Israeli Governance Crisis

06 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Natan Sachs is a Brookings senior fellow and the head of the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy, part of the Brookings Foreign Policy program. Be...

Jacob Schulz and Justin Sherman on the New Zealand Report

05 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Two years ago, a gunman opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing dozens of innocent people. Last December, the government of N...

Rashawn Ray on Reforming Civil Police Settlements

02 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Derek Chauvin trial is underway in Minnesota, and the city of Minneapolis last week settled with the family of George Floyd for $27 million. Benja...

Tech CEOs Head to the Hill, Again

01 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Arbiters of Truth, the Lawfare Podcast’s miniseries on our online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Iss...

The Myth of Artificial Intelligence

31 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alvaro Marañon sat down with Erik Larson, a computer scientist, tech entrepreneur and author of the new book, "The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: W...

Why is Government Hate Crimes Data So Terrible?

30 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Anti-Asian violence in the United States seems to be on the rise. On March 16, a shooter killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women, at several...

The Generals vs. the Armed Services Committee with No Bull

29 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Last Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held an open hearing that reviewed U.S. Cyber Command's and Special Operation Command's Defense Aut...

Alex Reinert on Qualified Immunity

26 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alexander Reinert is the Max Freund Professor of Litigation & Advocacy at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, where he teaches and conducts researc...

YouTube, We Have a Problem

25 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Arbiters of Truth, the Lawfare Podcast’s miniseries on our online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic sat down with ...

Jacob Schulz on Seditious Conspiracy

24 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's been a big week for the seditious conspiracy statute, which has long been on the books, quietly forbidding violent interference with the lawful f...

Jonathan Gould on Codifying Constitutional Norms

23 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our constitutional system involves the written document, plus two and a half centuries of judicial decisions interpreting it. But these two things onl...

Seamus Hughes and Alan Rozenshtein on the January 6 Charges

22 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Wittes sat down on Lawfare Live with Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, and Alan...

Nicole Perlroth on the Cyberweapons Arms Race

19 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Goldsmith spoke with New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth about her new book, "This is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cybe...

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Section 230 Reform

18 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, the Lawfare Podcast’s miniseries on our online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke wi...

Covert Action

17 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David Kris sat down with David Robarge, the chief historian at the Central Intelligence Agency, to discuss covert action. All together, around 50 cove...

Dmitri Alperovitch on SolarWinds and Microsoft Exchange

16 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dmitri Alperovitch is the executive chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, and he's the co-founder and former chief technology officer at CrowdStri...

'2034: A Novel of the Next World War'

15 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Alex Vindman sat down with retired Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman, the authors of "2034: A Novel of the Next World War." Admiral Stavridi...

War Powers and the Biden Administration

12 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

President Joe Biden has conducted military strikes in Syria, has articulated legal theories under which the series of strikes were proper and has temp...

Content Moderation and the First Amendment for Dummies

11 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, the Lawfare Podcast’s miniseries on disinformation and misinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke w...

America's War in Afghanistan's Pech Valley

10 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Wesley Morgan is a former military affairs reporter at Politico and the author of the new book, "The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Af...

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon on 'The Daughters of Kobani'

09 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Since 2014, the civil war in Syria has involved an incredibly diverse and complex array of actors representing all manner of ideology and sectarian id...

The National Security Law Guys Talk War Powers, Islamic State Detainees and Much More

08 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lawfare founder Bobby Chesney and Lawfare contributing editor Steve Vladeck host the weekly National Security Law Podcast from the University of Texas...

January 6 Oversight with No Bull

05 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Rules Committee held their second hearing to examine the January 6 attack on the C...

Emily Bell on Journalism in the Platform Era

04 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, the Lawfare Podcast’s miniseries on disinformation and misinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke w...

Chris Wray vs. the Committee with No Bull

03 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray faced the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to talk about the January 6 riot and insurrection. The hearing covere...

Rosa Brooks on American Policing

02 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Many scholars have written about the police, but almost all have done so from the outside. Rosa Brooks, a law professor at Georgetown University, is o...

Your Questions on Iraq

01 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The United States hit targets in Syria associated with two Iraqi militias last week in the first military operations of the Biden administration. To c...

Mary Anne Franks on Section 230

26 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 immunizes platforms for the behavior of their users. It's been called by some the Magna Carta of...

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen on Australia, Facebook and the Future of Journalism

25 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This week on Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth miniseries on disinformation and misinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Rasmus Kleis Niel...

Merrick Garland vs. the Judiciary Committee with No Bull

24 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland faced the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday for a multi-hour session of questions and answers from senator...

Alex Klass on the Texas Energy Crisis

23 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For more than a week now, Texas has been struggling with a massive power outage caused by record low temperatures. Millions have been without power, h...

Trust, Software and Hardware

22 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David Hoffman is associate general counsel and global privacy officer for the Intel Corporation, as well as the Steed Family Professor of Practice in ...

The Coup in Myanmar

19 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On February 1, Myanmar's military overthrew the country's democratically elected government in a coup and declared a state of emergency for a year. It...

Chinmayi Arun on India and the Future of the Internet

18 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Right now in India, there’s a legal battle that could portend the future of the internet. In this episode of Arbiters of Truth, Lawfare’s miniseri...

How the Impeachment Trial Ends

17 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump is now over. It ended with a roar and then a whimper, and then a little bit of a roar again, as seven ...

Iran, the U.S. and the Middle East at a Turning Point

16 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Biden administration has promised significant changes to the U.S. relationship with Iran that could have a marked impact on the Middle East. What ...

Canada Takes on the Proud Boys

12 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Lost in the shuffle of an impeachment trial here in the United States was big news from Canada last week. Canada’s Minister of Public Safety added t...

Ben Smith on Gatekeepers in the Internet Age

11 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, Lawfare’s miniseries on disinformation and misinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Ben Smit...

An Update from Hong Kong

10 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

While we have been dealing with an insurrection in Washington, protestors in Hong Kong are being tried under the city's new Beijing-imposed national s...

The Legacy of George Shultz with Nicholas Burns and Kori Schake

09 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

George Shultz passed away on February 6, just two months after passing his 100th birthday. He was a momentous and fascinating national security figure...

An Impeachment Trial Preview

08 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump—the sequel—gets underway this week when the House impeachment managers and Trump's new defense team s...

Transnational Repression: Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach

05 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Some countries don't just abuse their citizens within their own borders; increasingly, they target individuals after they have gone abroad. A range of...

Lawfare Enters the Substack Discourse

04 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, Lawfare’s miniseries on disinformation and misinformation, Quinta Jurecic sat down with Lawfare’s deputy man...

Impeachment Briefing

03 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

There is an impeachment trial next week, and the two sides—the impeachment managers for the House of Representatives and the lawyers for the former ...

Alina Polyakova on the Protests in Russia

02 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It was the second weekend of major protests in Russia, as Russians across the country took to the streets to protest the detention of Alexei Navalny. ...

DHS Warning: Domestic Violent Extremists!

01 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On January 27, the Department of Homeland Security issued an unusual National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin—unusual because it addressed solely...

The Least Dangerous Branch … of Facebook

29 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Yesterday was a big day—the day that the Facebook Oversight Board released its first decisions. The independent board, an experiment in platform gov...

Joan Donovan on Disinformation and Social Movements

28 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

For this episode of Arbiters of Truth, Lawfare’s miniseries on disinformation and misinformation, Kate Klonick and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Joan Do...

Project VENONA

27 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

David Kris sat down with David Hatch, the senior historian at the U.S. National Security Agency. They discussed Project VENONA, an incredibly signific...

'The President Who Would Not Be King'

26 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Goldsmith sat down with Michael McConnell, the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford La...

Confirmation Hearing Blitz with No Bull

25 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The day before last week's inauguration of President Joe Biden, four of the Biden administration's core national security nominees appeared before var...

Dan Byman on the Sequel that Never Came to Be

22 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It was supposed to be the big sequel to the January 6 "Stop the Steal" rally-turned-riot. It was supposed to be the largest armed protest in the histo...