The Lawfare Podcast

Jack Goldsmith on 'In Hoffa’s Shadow'

05 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1975, labor union leader and American icon Jimmy Hoffa went missing. Forty-four years after Hoffa’s disappearance, the crime remains one of Ameri...

WTF, Ukraine!

01 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The first two years of the Trump presidency were tied up with the Russia scandal. Now, there’s another scandal involving Russia’s next-door neighb...

The Report, Episode 9: Honest Loyalty

29 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s January 26, 2017. Sally Yates is the acting Attorney General; she’s leading the Justice Department until Jeff Sessions is confirmed by the Se...

Judge John Bates on FISA in the News

28 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

At the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas, Benjamin Wittes sat down in front of a live audience with Judge John Bates, a senior district judge on...

The Lawfare Podcast: Bonus Edition: Acting DNI Joseph Maguire vs. the Committee with No Bull

27 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire appeared before the House Intelligence Committee to discuss his handling of the whistleblower ...

Special Edition: A Perfect Phone Call

25 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The White House has released a memorandum of a July 25 call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Donald Trump. The call is at ...

Jack Goldsmith and John Fabian Witt on 'To Save the Country'

25 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Goldsmith sat down with John Fabian Witt, professor of law at Yale Law School to talk about Witt’s new book, "To Save the Country: A Lost Treat...

Special Edition: Whistleblower, Ukraine and Trump

23 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There is an evolving a standoff between the House Intelligence Committee and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence over a whistleblower ...

The Report, Episode 8: End Of The Beginning

23 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s May 12, 2017. The FBI is still reeling from the sudden firing of Director James Comey. Andrew McCabe has only been the acting Director for 3 da...

Josh Campbell on 'Crossfire Hurricane'

21 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Josh Campbell spent twelve years in the FBI, including work as a supervisory special agent and as special assistant to FBI Director James Comey. He is...

The Attack in Saudi Arabia

18 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Tensions in the Middle East are at a high point. Over the weekend, large Saudi oil facilities were attacked. The Yemeni Houthis jumped in to claim res...

What Should Privacy Legislation Do?

14 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Amid all of the legislative disfunction from Congress, a consensus of sorts is emerging on the need for privacy legislation. Between European pressure...

Congress, Congress, and More Congress

11 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The lengthy August recess has come to a close, and Congress is back. We have an impeachment investigation, we have an expanded scope of that investiga...

Turnover and Turmoil Inside the State Department

07 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

This summer has been a tumultuous one inside the U.S. State Department. In August, the department’s Office of the Inspector General handed down a sc...

Tom Wheeler on the Need for Real Cybersecurity for 5G

03 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

5G telecommunications networks are beginning to be rolled out in the United States and around the world. We've heard a lot about the national security...

The Report, Episode 7: Charging Decisions

01 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s April 18, 2019, Attorney General Bill Barr summons reporters to the Department of Justice in Washington DC. Robert Mueller’s report is about ...

Janet Napolitano on the State of Homeland Security

31 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Janet Napolitano served as the secretary of homeland security from 2009–2013. Before that, she was attorney general of the State of Arizona and the ...

Christine Fair on Developments in Kashmir

28 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On August 5, the Indian government announced that it was revoking “special status” for the states of Jammu and Kashmir, enshrined in Article 370 o...

The Report, Part VI: Back Channels

26 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s December 29, 2016. The Obama administration announces that it’s imposing sanctions on Russia, as punishment for election interference. Michae...

Jessica Marsden on New Proposals for Protecting Democracy

24 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In a recent white paper, the organization Protect Democracy makes the case that President Trump has used the powers of the presidency, federal resourc...

Michael Desch on Social Science and National Security

21 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David Priess sat down with Michael Desch, Professor of International Relations at the University of Notre Dame and the director of the Notre Dame Inte...

The Report, Part V: Russian Overtures

19 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s the morning of April 25, 2016. At a hotel in London, a Maltese professor meets with a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. The t...

Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace on White Lies

17 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Andrew Beck Grace and Chip Brantley are the creators of the NPR podcast audio documentary White Lies, which deals with the murder of Rev. James Reeb i...

Sasha O'Connell on Turning a Ship Like the FBI

13 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Sasha O'Connell is Executive in Residence in the School of Public Affairs at American University, as well as AU's director of the Terrorism and Homela...

The Report, Episode 4: A Tale of Two Trump Towers

11 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The fourth episode of Lawfare’s narrative audio documentary, The Report, which tells the story Robert S. Mueller lays out in his famous 448-page ...

Amanda Sloat on Boris Johnson and Brexit

10 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The United Kingdom has a new Prime Minister. It also has a looming cliff it is careening toward and about to leap off of on Halloween of this year. Th...

Mark Rozell on 'Presidential Power, Secrecy and Accountability'

07 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Over the years, presidents have used different language to describe the withholding of information from Congress. To discuss the concept of "executive...

The Report, Episode III: The Campaign and the Leaks

04 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

While Trump campaign officials engaged with the Russian social media manipulation operation as unwitting dupes, the story of the Trump campaign’s in...

Mary Ann Glendon on Unalienable Rights

03 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Mary Ann Glendon is the chair of the Commission on Unalienable Rights, announced by Secretary Pompeo on July 8, 2019, to great controversy. The commis...

Ambassador Doug Silliman on the State of the U.S.-Iraq Relationship

30 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Few nations have a history with the United States that is as complicated as that of the Republic of Iraq. Today, several factors, including the Trump ...

Jonna Mendez on 'The Moscow Rules'

28 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency had a major problem. The streets of Moscow were a virtually impossible operating environment d...

The Report, Episode II: "Hack, Dump, Divide"

26 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, we released the first episode of this narrative audio documentary, which tells the story Robert S. Mueller lays out in his famous 448 page ...

Bonus Edition: Robert Mueller vs. the Committees with No Bull—Just the Democrats

25 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III testified before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. There was plenty of repet...

Bonus Edition: Robert Mueller vs. the Committees with No Bull—Just the Republicans

25 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III testified before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. There was plenty of repet...

Special Edition: Robert Mueller Testifies Before Congress

25 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III testified on Wednesday before the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees. Following the hearing, Law...

Mueller's Testimony: A Preview

23 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Finally, this week, former FBI director Robert Swan Mueller III will testify in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees about the fin...

Jack Goldsmith Talks to Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter

20 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jack Goldsmith sat down in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to have a conversation with former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. They talked about Carter's ti...

Introducing “The Report”: A Podcast Series from Lawfare

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For the past several weeks, a group of us has been working on a project to tell the story of the Mueller Report in an accessible form. The Mueller Rep...

Larry Diamond on 'Ill Winds'

16 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, has spent the last forty years studying democracy. Over the last few yea...

The National Security Institute on Hot Topics in U.S. Foreign Policy

13 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Our friends from the National Security Institute at George Mason University stopped by earlier this week for their 3rd edition of Faultlines, to discu...

Austin Evers and Mike Stern on Congressional Oversight

10 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump has declared that he will fight “all the subpoenas” coming from Congress and has claimed “absolute immunity” for White House a...

Dan Byman on 'Road Warriors: Foreign Fighters in the Armies of Jihad'

06 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Wittes sat down with Dan Byman, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Studies and Lawfare's foreign policy edit...

WTF, Hong Kong?

02 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Early this week, about 200 protestors broke into and occupied the seat of Hong Kong's legislative assembly. The protests began with a controversial la...

@CrimeADay Teaches You How to Become a Federal Criminal

29 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We don't usually do humor on The Lawfare Podcast, but this week, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Mike Chase, whom you probably know better on Twitter as...

Mike O'Hanlon on 'The Senkaku Paradox'

26 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Wittes sat down with Mike O'Hanlon who writes on military affairs and foreign policy, and has been a senior fellow at the Brookings Instituti...

Errol Morris on Documenting Bannon

22 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Errol Morris is a celebrated documentarian whose films have covered an array of topics in law and national security. They include "The Fog of War," wh...

Scott Anderson and Suzanne Maloney on Iran, WTF?

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It's getting ugly in the Persian Gulf: Iran allegedly attacks two oil tankers. It announces that it's going to violate the JCPOA, the so-called Iran n...

Jim Sciutto on ‘The Shadow War’

15 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Russian and Chinese leaders understand that they’re unlikely to win a shooting war with the United States, but they have other ways to challenge Wes...

Nate Persily and Alex Stamos on Securing American Elections

12 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

More than two years after the 2016 presidential election, new information continues to seep into the public about the extent of Russia's sweeping and ...

Culper Partners Rule of Law Series: John Bellinger

08 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of the special Culper Partners Rule of Law Series, David Kris and Nate Jones speak with John Bellinger. John is one of the country's f...

Nada Bakos on 'The Targeter'

04 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In movies and TV shows like Zero Dark Thirty and Homeland, Hollywood has fictionalized the roles of intelligence officers in tracking down terrorists....

Ben Huebner on Privacy and Civil Liberties at the CIA

01 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The U.S. intelligence community is, by design, shrouded in secret, but it is ultimately responsible to the public. So how do intelligence agencies bal...

Special Edition: Mueller's Last Word?

29 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Susan Hennessey hosts Quinta Jurecic, David Kris, Paul Rosenzweig and Benjamin Wittes to discuss (now former) Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Wednesd...

Avril Haines, Eric Rosenbach, and David Sanger on U.S. Offensive Cyber Operations

29 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From the Washington Post’s February report that U.S. Cyber Command took a Russian disinformation operation offline on the day of the 2018 midterms t...

An NSI Conversation on U.S.-China Policy

25 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Our friends from the National Security Institute at George Mason University stopped by earlier this week to discuss U.S.-China relations. Lester Munso...

Chuck Rosenberg on The Oath

21 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Chuck Rosenberg is a former U.S. Attorney, former senior FBI official, and the former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He is now an...

Christine Fair on the Sri Lanka Attacks

18 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Christine Fair is an expert on South Asian politics and extremist groups, and it's been a bad few weeks in Sri Lanka. A major terrorist attack, the la...

Jared Cohen on 'Accidental Presidents'

15 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jared Cohen is the founder and CEO of Jigsaw and Alphabet Inc., who previously ran Google Ideas and served as a member of the Secretary of State's pol...

John Sipher on Mueller's Report on Russian Intelligence Operations

11 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Mueller report is out, all 448 pages of it, and its first volume tells a detailed story of Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential elect...

Bonus Edition: Jim Baker on the Russia Investigation

10 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On May 10, the Brookings Institution hosted a public conversation between former FBI General Counsel Jim Baker, who is now the Director of National Se...

Culper Partners Rule of Law Series: Jamie Gorelick

08 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this sixth episode of the special Culper Partners Rule of Law Series, David Kris and Nate Jones speak with former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gor...

Bonus Edition: Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman on 'Of Privacy and Power'

06 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On April 23, the Hoover Institution hosted the latest iteration of the Security by the Book series, where Jack Goldsmith interviewed Henry Farrell and...

Bill Galston on Populism and Impeachment

04 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Bill Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and domestic policy advisor in the Clinton White House, wrote his column this week in the W...

Bonus Edition: Attorney General Barr vs. the Committee with No Bull

02 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Attorney General Bill Barr appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to discuss the Mueller report and the Justice Department’s ...

A BuzzFeed After-Action Report with Leopold and Cormier

01 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On January 17, 2019, BuzzFeed News reported a blockbuster. The headline reads, President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To Congress ...

Congress, Congress, and More Congress with Margaret Taylor and Molly Reynolds

27 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The action has shifted to Congress, the Mueller report is filed, and a blizzard of subpoena fights between the White House and various congressional c...

Bonus Edition: A Brookings Discussion on What We Learned From the Mueller Report

24 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On April 23, Benjamin Wittes hosted a panel discussion at the Brookings Institution unpacking what we learned from the redacted version of the Muell...

Michael Anton Defends Trump's Foreign Policy

23 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Anton, former Trump administration national security official and a research fellow at Hillsdale College, has published an essay in Foreign Po...

Culper Partners Rule of Law Series: Ron Klain

21 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this fifth episode of the special Culper Partners Rule of Law Series, David Kris and Nate Jones speak with former senior White House and DOJ offici...

Special Edition: What to Make of the Mueller Report

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A redacted version of the 448-page Mueller report dropped yesterday, and there’s a lot to say about it. In this Special Edition of the Lawfare Podca...

Special Edition: The Mueller Report in Under an Hour

18 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Justice Department released on Thursday morning a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. The Mueller team divided the repo...

Michelle Melton on Climate Change as a National Security Threat

17 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Since November, Lawfare Contributor Michelle Melton has run a series on our website about Climate Change and National Security, examining the implicat...

Julian Mortenson on 'The Executive Power'

13 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Julian Mortenson, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, is the author of a remarkable new article entitled "Article II Vests Executive Power...

Bonus Edition: James Comey at Verify 2019

11 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On Thursday morning, Susan Hennessey spoke to former FBI director James Comey about encryption, China, Attorney General Bill Barr's comments to the Se...

Shorts: Memo to the Press: How Not to Screw Up on the Mueller Report

10 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Attorney General Bill Barr announced on Wednesday, April 10, that the Mueller report will be released next week. While we wait for the release, Qu...

An NSI Conversation on Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and U.S. Policy

09 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Our friends at the National Security Institute at George Mason University came over last week to have a discussion in our podcast studio about Yemen a...

Culper Partners Rule of Law Series: Kathy Ruemmler

06 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this fourth episode of the special Culper Partners Rule of Law series, David Kris and Nate Jones speak with former White House Counsel Kathy Ruemml...

Mary Louise Kelly and Shane Harris on Covering the CIA

02 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Back in February, we hosted Bill Harlow and Marie Harf, two former public affairs officers at the Central Intelligence Agency, to discuss how the CIA ...

Ambassador Kim Darroch on the State of the Special Relationship

30 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There's a special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, but with Brexit and the erratic presidency of Donald Trump, it hasn't...

Sue Biniaz on the Trump Administration and International Climate Policy

27 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From 1989 to early 2017, Sue Biniaz was the lead climate lawyer and a climate negotiator at the State Department. She was also a key architect of the ...

Special Edition: The Mueller Report and the Barr Letter

25 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Special Counsel Robert Mueller sent his report to Bill Barr on Friday, and the attorney general sent a letter to Congress on Sunday detailing the pr...

Culper Partners Rule of Law Series: Sen. Saxby Chambliss

23 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this third episode of the special Culper Partners Rule of Law series, David Kris and Nate Jones speak with former Senator Saxby Chambliss, who serv...

African Elections and U.S. Interests

19 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Demographic, technological, and geostrategic developments are disrupting the electoral landscape in sub-Saharan Africa. How do these shifts affect the...

Shorts: ‘Speaking Indictments’ by Robert S. Mueller III

18 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s Robert Mueller as you’ve never heard him before. We have something special for you on the podcast today. Something very different. The Muelle...

Bill Browder and Jago Russell Debate Interpol and Authoritarian Governments

16 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Bill Browder, human rights campaigner and foe of Vladimir Putin, seems to get arrested whenever he travels abroad as a result of red notices and diffu...

Andrew Coan on 'Prosecuting the President'

12 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As the nation braces for the forthcoming end of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into President Trump and his associates, The Lawfare Po...

War Powers History You Never Knew with Matt Waxman

09 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For the past year, Matt Waxman has been writing Lawfare vignettes about interesting—and usually overlooked—historical episodes of American constit...

Shorts: FBI Director Wray on Combating Cyberthreats

06 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On Tuesday, Susan Hennessey interviewed FBI Director Chris Wray at the 2019 RSA Conference. They discussed about how the Director views the cyber thre...

John Judis on The Nationalist Revival

06 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Political trends in recent years have seen a rise of right-leaning nationalism and populism around the globe, including in the United States. What are...

Luke Murry and Daniel Silverberg on National Security in Congress

02 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It's hard to open a newspaper or turn on the television without hearing about the dysfunction and partisan polarization affecting members of Congress....

Bonus Edition: Michael Cohen vs. the Committee with No Bull

28 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, Michael Cohen—the former executive vice president of the Trump Organization, former deputy finance chairman of the Republican National...

Culper Partners Rule of Law Series: Eric Holder

27 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this second episode of the special Culper Partners Rule of Law Series, David Kris and Nates Jones, the founders of the Culper Partners consulting f...

Bastian Giegerich on IISS's 2019 Military Balance

23 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Each year, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London publishes The Military Balance, an annual assessment of the military cap...

Shorts: Four Principles for Reading the Mueller Report

22 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It’s looking more and more like Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation is finally reaching an end. The regulations under which he is op...

Marie Harf and Bill Harlow on CIA Public Relations

19 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Central Intelligence Agency, by its very nature, is a secretive organization, yet it has a robust public affairs and media relations operation. Ho...

Culper Rule of Law Series: Judge John Bates

16 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Something a little different on the podcast today: the launch of a special series—the Culper Partners Rule of Law Series. David Kris and Nates Jones...

Amanda Sloat on All Things Brexit

13 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On March 29, in approximately six weeks, the United Kingdom is scheduled to crash out of the European Union. As of the date of this podcast, there is ...

Bonus Edition: Whitaker vs. the Committee with No Bull

10 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

After the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee assured that he would be allowed to appear voluntarily, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker ...

The Future of Warfare

09 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From the increasing development of autonomous weapons systems to the expansion of the traditional battlefield to cyber and outer space, the evolution ...

Progressive Critiques of Liberal Internationalism

06 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Many critics of Donald Trump’s foreign policy say the president has undermined the liberal international order, but some progressives question wheth...