The Lawfare Podcast

Yascha Mounk on Populism and Democracy

10 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Wittes speaks to Yascha Mounk about his new book: 'The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It."Support this sh...

Max Boot on 'The Road Not Taken'

07 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Wittes interviews Max Boot on Boot's new book, "The Road Not Taken," for the Hoover Book Soiree.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/...

Zhanna Nemtsova on Boris Nemtsov's Life

02 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Alina Polyakova speaks to Zhanna Nemtsova about the life and political legacy of her father, Boris Nemtsov. Learn more about Nemtsova's work at nemtso...

Dan Radosh on 'Liberty Crossing'

28 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Wittes speaks to "Daily Show" writer Dan Radosh about his latest sitcom, "Liberty Crossing," a workplace comedy about intelligence analysts a...

Stephen Williams on Vasily Maklakov

23 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Benjamin Wittes speaks to Judge Stephen Williams about his new book "The Reformer: How One Liberal Fought to Preempt the Russian Revolution," the stor...

Phil Carter on Civil-Military Relations in the Trump Administration

21 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The military has been not been a refuge from the Trump administration's norm-defying nature. This week, Jack Goldsmith speaks to Phil Carter, a senior...

Special Edition: Mueller Indicts Russian Trolls

17 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

On Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian entities involved in efforts to interfere in the U.S. ...

Chuck Rosenberg on Value-Based Leadership

13 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Chuck Rosenberg spent most of his career leading or helping lead federal law enforcement agencies. Before serving as head of the Drug Enforcement Admi...

David Frum on Threats to Democracy in the Trump Era

09 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In his recent New York Times bestseller “Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic,” David Frum, senior editor of The Atlantic, lays o...

Special Edition: Memo #Released

03 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

On Friday, Rep. Devin Nunes, the House intelligence committee chairman, released a controversial and long-awaited memo alleging surveillance abuses by...

Mike Pompeo on the State of the CIA

30 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, CIA Director Mike Pompeo visited the American Enterprise Institute to join AEI Resident Fellow Marc Thiessen for a conversation to reflect ...

Stephen Vladeck on Dalmazzi

27 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Lawfare contributor and University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck argued before the Supreme Court last week in United States v. Dalmazzi, a...

The Lawfare Podcast, Special Edition: Not Firing Bob Mueller

26 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The New York Times Thursday evening is reporting that back in June, President Trump tried to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller—but couldn't quite ...

What the Heck Happened in Hawaii?

23 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

It may seem like ages ago, but the false alarm about a missile heading towards Hawaii hasn't left our minds. Last week, Shannon Togawa Mercer interv...

Shaun Walker on Russia's Long Hangover

20 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

This week on the Lawfare Podcast, the Guardian's Moscow correspondent Shaun Walker joined special guest host Alina Polyakova to discuss his new book ...

Special Edition: Anthony Cormier on Russia Wire Transfers

17 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Buzzfeed News has published a lengthy story by reporters Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier entitled, "Investigators Are Scrutinizing Newly Uncovered P...

David Anderson on the United Kingdom's Intelligence Policies

13 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

This week, Shannon Togawa Mercer and Benjamin Wittes interviewed David Anderson QC, who served as the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation i...

Julia Ioffe on What Putin Really Wants and Fears

09 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Behind the legend of Vladimir Putin, which America’s obsession with Russia’s meddling in the 2016 elections has only bolstered, hides a complex po...

Through the Looking Glass with Mike Doran, Part II

06 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Part II of the conversation between Michael Doran and Benjamin Wittes. Doran, a former Brookings scholar now at the Hudson Institute, served in the Ge...

Special Edition: The New York Times on Obstruction

05 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

This evening, the New York Times published a story with new details of significance to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation regarding t...

Through the Looking Glass with Mike Doran, Part I

02 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Doran and Benjamin Wittes have an extended conversation about Trump, Russia, and how Doran parted ways with his many colleagues who became #Ne...

Year in Review: Lawfare Questions

30 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

As we wrap up 2017, we wanted to listen to you, our listeners. In this year-end episode of the Lawfare Podcast, Lawfare contributors took your questio...

What the Heck is Up with 702?

23 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

As the year is coming to a close, Congress has now missed the deadline for reauthorizing FISA Section 702. Molly Reynolds, a Brookings fellow in Gover...

C. Christine Fair on Bangladeshi Terrorism

20 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, a Bangladeshi man set off a pipe bomb in the New York subway in an attempted terrorist attack inspired by the Islamic State. C. Christine F...

Noah Feldman on Madison’s Three Lives

16 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

President James Madison shaped the course of American history in not one, not two, but three different and foundational roles in the formation of the ...

Saria Samakie on Surviving Syria

12 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Saria Samakie has a story unlike those of most of his peers at Georgetown. After being kidnapped three times in Syria, Samakie managed to flee the war...

MIkhail Zygar on Putin as the Accidental King

09 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

When the Department of Justice required RT, the Russian-funded news outlet, to register as a foreign agent last month, the Russian government res...

Bruce Riedel on Kings and Presidents

05 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, America’s longtime ally in the Middle East, faces a tumultuous future. Plummeting oil prices, an ongoing royal purge, a...

Special Edition: A Criminal #Flynnformation and a Plea Deal

01 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty today and agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. We put together an al...

Orin Kerr on Carpenter

29 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Carpenter v. United States, a major Fourth Amendment case asking whether a warrant is necessary be...

Arkady Ostrovsky on Russia’s Wild Wild Far East

25 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Putin’s government is often painted as an all powerful, centralized regime. But, in reality, it’s far from that: in Russia’s Far East, Moscow i...

Gordon Wood on Friends Divided

21 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The relationship between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams largely shaped the course of the newly-formed United States of America. Historian Gordon Wood...

Naunihal Singh on Zimbabwe and the Strategic Logic of Military Coups

18 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

On Wednesday, Zimbabwe's military placed President Robert Mugabe under house arrest and took over state institutions in what is largely considered a m...

Cass Sunstein on the Citizen's Guide to Impeachment

14 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Discussion on impeachment has intensified since Donald Trump assumed office this January, but what do we know about impeachment’s constitutional des...

Andrei Soldatov on Russian Intel Ops and Surveillance

12 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Matters Russia have been prevalent in U.S. politics since news of the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 elections first surfaced. It's time to pay some...

Special Edition: A Person of Flynnterest

10 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The Wall Street Journal this morning broke a major story: Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating President Trump's former national security a...

Susan Landau is Listening in on You

07 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Technology presents both consumer convenience and risk, creating a conflict between security and privacy as government agencies seek to weaken the pro...

Populisms Ancient and Modern with Mike Duncan

03 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Political polarization, inequality, and corruption during the period 146 to 78 BC gravely weakened the Roman Republic in the years before its colla...

Anne Applebaum on the Red Famine

01 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Stalin’s 1929 agricultural collectivization policy, which catalyzed the most lethal famine in European history, left millions of Ukrainian peasants ...

Special Edition: Indictment Day

31 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What a day. Paul Manafort Jr. and Richard Gates III have been indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who today also rolled out a plea deal with T...

Revenge of the Blob: A Texas National Security Review Panel

27 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This week marked the launch of the Texas National Security Review, a new publication from the University of Texas and War on the Rocks. At the recent ...

Brookings Panel on 'Icarus' and Russian Meddling

24 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Last week, Lawfare hosted a screening and panel discussion of the new film Icarus at the Brookings Institution. Benjamin Wittes moderated the conversa...

Timothy Edgar on Mass Surveillance After Snowden

21 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In his recent book Beyond Snowden: Privacy, Mass Surveillance, and the Struggle to Reform the NSA, civil liberties activist and former intelligence of...

Bonus Edition: Stephen Vladeck on Detaining an American Enemy Combatant

17 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

When an American ISIS fighter turned himself in to Syrian Democratic Forces last month, the subsequent detention of the unnamed enemy combatant by U.S...

Shadi Hamid and William McCants on Rethinking Political Islam

13 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Political Islam has been radically shifting in the past four years since the Egyptian coup and the emergence of ISIS, consequently challenging how we ...

Bob Bauer and A.B. Culvahouse on Defending the President

06 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, Lawfare and Foreign Policy hosted an event on lawyering for the Trump presidency. Susan Hennessey spoke with former White House Counsels B...

Bonus Edition: Jack Goldsmith on the Norm-Defying Presidency

03 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump's conduct in office draws a sharp contrast between laws that formally restrict the presidency and the institutional norms that preside...

Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro on 'The Internationalists'

29 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The Kellogg-Briand Pact is often remembered as a failure; signed in 1928 to outlaw war, it was followed in just over a decade by one of the deadliest...

Stephan Haggard on North Korea and the Tactical Divide

22 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The escalating tension between North Korea and the United States has risen to an unprecedented level. Earlier this month, Stephan Haggard, Lawrence an...

Brookings Panel on Cybersecurity in U.S. Elections

15 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The evidence of foreign interference in the 2016 U.S. elections emphasizes the significant national security threat to our democracy. Last week, Susan...

Benjamin Wittes on Investigating the President

08 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Russian gove...

Special Edition: Shane Harris and Paul Rosenzweig on the State of Things Today

31 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In the past 24 hours, the Financial Times reported that Russian lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin testified before Robert Mueller's grand jury; Politico carr...

#LawfareQuestions

25 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes answer listener questions about Lawfare, the podcast, and current events in law and national security.Support thi...

Bobby Chesney and Michael Sulmeyer on NSA and Cyber Command

18 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Friday morning, the White House announced it will elevate Cyber Command to a full unified combatant command. Within 60 days, the Secretary of Defense ...

Bryan Fogel on "Icarus"—and Russia

12 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Filmmaker and cyclist Bryan Fogel talks about his new movie, Icarus, about Russian subversion of international doping rules in sports—and how it r...

Mira Rapp-Hooper and Stephan Haggard on North Korea

05 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The growing threat from North Korea has intensified during the past few weeks after a series of missile tests demonstrated that the Kim regime may so...

Jim Baker and Carl Ghattas on Section 702

28 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

On December 31, 2017, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act will sunset. Officials insist that the provision authorizes critical intelligence gatheri...

Graham Allison on "Destined for War"

22 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This week on the Lawfare Podcast, Jack Goldsmith interviews Graham Allison at the Hoover Book Soiree about Allison's new book, Destined for War: Ca...

Mieke Eoyang and Evelyn Farkas on Holding Russia Accountable for Election Interference

15 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

At this point, it’s widely accepted that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election; the question now is what the United States should do a...

Matt Tait on Recent Events in Cybersecurity

08 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This week, Ben discusses recent events in cybersecurity with Matt Tait. Matt shared his views on WannaCry, NotPetya, and what companies and governme...

Special Edition: Shane Harris on The Wall Street Journal's Collusion Story

30 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Today, Shane Harris of The Wall Street Journal published an article entitled "GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection ...

Avi Issacharoff and Dov Sedaka on "Fauda"

24 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This week, in Israel, Ben had two conversations about the television show Fauda. On Tuesday, Ben spoke with Avi Issacharoff, the show's co-creator...

Dan Drezner on "The Ideas Industry"

17 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This week, the Lawfare Podcast brings you Jack Goldsmith's interview with Dan Drezner at the Hoover Book Soirée about Drezner's new book, The Idea...

Special Edition: Sessions Versus the Committee with No Bull

14 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Attorney General Jeff Sessions faced questioning from the Senate Intelligence Committee today. He answered questions on his recusal, on his role in Ja...

Carrie Cordero and Paul Rosenzweig Weigh in on Comey

09 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

As the dust settles following former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Lawfare Podcast brings you ...

Special Edition: Comey Versus the Senate Intelligence Committee with No Bull

09 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In much-anticipated testimony today, former FBI Director James Comey spoke before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the subject of his many interac...

Matt Olsen on the Future of Section 702

03 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

With the impending sunset of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in December 2017, debate is heating up over how the crucial inte...

Special Edition: The Kushnercast

31 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Just before the holiday weekend, as you were drifting out of town, the Washington Post dropped its 15 kiloton Kushner bomb. Over the weekend, the New...

Bob Bauer on Trump and the White House Counsel

27 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Amidst the hurricane of news coming out of the White House in recent weeks, one question has surfaced again and again: why isn't White House Counsel D...

Mira Rapp-Hooper on the Slow-Motion Crisis in North Korea

20 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

It's been a long and stressful week on the domestic front, so we at the Lawfare Podcast are bringing you a podcast on a cheerier subject: the loomin...

Special Edition: Mukasey and Eggleston at the Federalist Society

18 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

It has been, to put it mildly, a busy week. So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that when Benjamin Wittes sat down with former attorney general to ...

Emergency Edition: Trump Gives Classified Material to the Russians

16 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This afternoon, the Washington Post broke a major story: Donald Trump disclosed highly classified material to the Russian ambassador and Foreign Minis...

The Rise of America’s Special Operations Forces

13 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been a long week, so after our special emergency edition on the firing of FBI Director James Comey, the Lawfare Podcast is coming to your rescu...

Emergency Edition on FBI Director Comey's Firing

10 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The sound quality is, well, substandard, and we apologize for that. But people on Twitter were asking for an emergency podcast on FBI Director James ...

A House Divided

06 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Three months into the Trump presidency, where does the relationship between the President and the intelligence community stand? Donald Trump is no lon...

Privacy & Power: A Transatlantic Dialogue in the Shadow of the NSA-Affair

29 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Four years on, the cultural differences between Europe and the United States exposed by Edward Snowden’s disclosures of NSA surveillance programs st...

The Lawfare Podcast: A Speech on Sextortion by Mona Sedky

22 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Over the past year, Lawfare has expended a great deal of ink on the problem of sextortion, a form of online sexual assault in which perpetrators obtai...

Cyber Insecurity

15 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

As our dependence on cyberspace increases, so too will the urgency of crafting good cybersecurity policy—but the combination of knotty problems in t...

The Triple Entente Beer Summit

08 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

At the Third Triple Entente Beer Summit, the usual Rational Security gang (Shane Harris, Benjamin Wittes, Tamara Cofman Wittes, and Susan Hennessey) j...

Special Emergency Edition: A (Shorter) Primer in Russian Active Measures and Influence Campaigns

05 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

On Friday, March 31st, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held its first open hearing in its investigation into Russian interference in the U...

Graeme Wood on "The Way of the Strangers"

31 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

At this week's Hoover Book Soiree, Samuel Tadros of the Hudson Institute and the Hoover Institution sat down with Graeme Wood to discuss his new book,...

Rep. Adam Schiff on the Role of Congress in Protecting Liberal Democracy

24 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Between leading the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's first open hearing on Russian election interference on Monday, and sparring wit...

Special Emergency Edition: Comey and Rogers Versus the Comittee, the Good Parts Version

21 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Yesterday, FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Russian interference in ...

Cybersecurity in the Trump Administration

18 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

President Donald Trump has pledged to end the defense sequester and make the development of defensive and offensive cyber capabilities a White House p...

Jack Goldsmith and Matt Olsen on the Current State of National Security

11 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

This week on the podcast, Jack Goldsmith sat down with former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matt Olsen to talk about the current st...

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

04 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Yesterday, Just Security and the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law hosted Benjamin Wittes for a conversation on a questi...

Paul Lewis on Not Closing Guantanamo

24 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Under the oversight of Paul Lewis, the Department of Defense’s Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure under the Obama administration, the detainee pop...

Edward Jay Epstein on “How America Lost Its Secrets”

17 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Amidst the chaos surrounding Michael Flynn’s departure as national security advisor and the slowly unspooling news story on the Trump team’s repo...

Norm Eisen on the Emoluments Clause

11 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Donald Trump's election as president brought a surge of interest in the previously obscure Emoluments Clause, which prohibits any “Person holding a...

Goldsmith v. Lederman on Yates

01 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

On Monday, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the Justice Department not to defend President Trump's executive order banning refugees and imm...

About That Border Wall

28 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

President Trump kicked off the first foreign policy crisis of his new administration by signing an executive order mandating the construction of the m...

What the Privacy Debate Gets Wrong

20 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

On January 13th, Benjamin Wittes and Emma Kohse released a new paper challenging the assumption that "privacy is an eroding value," worn away by the i...

Jameel Jaffer on "The Drone Memos"

14 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Jameel Jaffer, author of The Drone Memos: Targeted Killing, Secrecy, and the Law, joins Jack Goldsmith at the Hoover Book Soiree. Support this show ...

Susan Hennessey and Matt Tait Go on a Political Witch Hunt

06 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In an interview with The New York Times before his intelligence briefing on Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. election on Friday, President-...

Deterring Russian Cyber Intrusions

23 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Whatever the President-elect might say on the matter, the question of Russian interference in the presidential election is not going away: calls conti...

Intelligence Under a Trump Administration

16 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The annual Cato Surveillance Conference kicked off this week with a panel on "Intelligence Under a Trump Administration," featuring former Director o...

The Lawfare Podcast: Christopher Moran on "Company Confessions: Secrets, Memoirs, and the CIA"

09 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The Lawfare Podcast has made it to our 200th episode! Thank you to all our listeners, old and new. This week at the Hoover Book Soiree, Jack Goldsmit...

Al-Shabaab Under the AUMF

02 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Earlier this week, the New York Times published a story by Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt, and Mark Mazzetti informing us that the Obama administratio...

Real Security: Governance and Stability in the Arab World

26 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This week on the podcast, we’re bringing you some post-Thanksgiving food for thought on the uncertain state of the Arab world. On November 21, Madel...

Bill Banks on "Soldiers on the Homefront: The Domestic Role of the American Military"

19 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

At this week's Hoover Book Soiree, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Bill Banks, Professor of Law at Syracuse University and the Founding Director of the...