The Lawfare Podcast

Many international law scholars are skeptical about the efficacy of international law to shape state behavior—and even international law's reality as law—because it lacks a centralized hierarchical legislature, executive branch, or judiciary. In his new book, “ Law for Leviathan: Constitutional Law, International Law, and the State ,” Daryl Levinson of NYU Law School challenges this conception of...

Unfortunately, Americans are certainly not strangers to far-right terrorism. From the 2015 mass murder at a historic Black church in Charleston, to the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, these horrific incidents are only the latest in a decades-long process, in which harmful conspiracy theories, radical ideologies, and hostility toward governme...

On January 15, Bernardo Arévalo took office as the new president of Guatemala. The transfer of power had been far from assured: after Arévalo triumphed in August elections as an anti-corruption reformer, Guatemala’s political elite did their best to throw legal obstacles in his way and prevent him from taking power. His presidency represents a stunning victory for Guatemalan democracy, which has l...

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 the week’s big national security news, including: “Losing the Immunity Challenge.” Earlier this week, the D.C. Circuit rejected former President Trump’s attempt to appeal the denial of his claims of presidential immunity to criminal charges arising...

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 Vests Executive Power, Not the Royal Prerogative," in the Columbia Law Review and  available  on SSRN. Recently, Benjamin Wittes spoke with the professor about the article, which Mortenson has been working on for years—as long as the two ha...

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 is disqualified from the office of the presidency under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and cannot appear on the 2024 presidential ballot. On this week's “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on February 8 in front of a live audience on YouTub...

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 citizenship industry grow and evolve in ways that both reflect and impact issues around national sovereignty, tax regimes, international business, and global inequities. David Priess chatted about these and related issues with political sociologist an...

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 Senate was preparing to vote both on the apparently doomed supplemental deal that included border security provisions, and on a deal without them.  Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Reynolds and E...

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 government's Jan. 6 case against him. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic, Scott R. Anderson, and Roger Parloff, and Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett, in front of a live audience on YouTub...

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 issue that is pervasive in many armed conflicts, and yet, even now, it’s often treated as an afterthought. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one of the lesser-appreciated ones is the limitation of existing law. Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie O...

One of the dark sides of the rapid development of artificial intelligence and machine learning is the increase in computer-generated child pornography and other child sexual abuse material, or CG-CSAM for short. This material threatens to overwhelm the attempts of online platforms to filter for harmful content—and of prosecutors to bring those who create and disseminate CG-CSAM to justice. But it...

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 security news, including:  “The Neighborhood is Getting Worse.” Three American service members were killed in a drone attack committed by Iran-backed militias in Jordan this past weekend. The Biden administration has promised a military response, but...

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on February 1 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke with Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower and Lawfare Senior Editors Roger Parloff and Quinta Jurecic about amicus briefs filed at the Supreme Court in the Trump disqualification case and Trump's financial situation gi...

From January 6, 2020: On Friday, the Lawfare Podcast  hosted a conversation on the wide-ranging policy implications of the U.S. strike that killed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ leader Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes, deputy commander of Iraq’s quasi-official Popular Mobilization Forces and leader of the Iraqi militia and PMF Keta’ib Hezbollah. Today’s special editi...

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear argument in  Trump v. Anderson , former President Donald Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s historic decision taking him off the state’s presidential primary ballot. In determining whether the Colorado Supreme Court erred in ordering Trump excluded from the state’s ballot, the Supreme Court faces one of the most fraught questions facing...

American aid to global victims of natural disasters might seem like a relatively new phenomenon, perhaps linked to the Marshall Plan and other major programs in the past several decades. But US efforts to assist those suffering from earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, major flooding, and other such catastrophes actually goes back to the James Madison administration, followed by a burst of i...

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 from holding the presidency under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars certain insurrectionists from holding certain federal and state posts.  Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff sat down with James A. Heilpern, a Senior Fellow at Brigh...

During a late night press conference in August, an Atlanta-area prosecutor announced a sprawling criminal case against Donald Trump and his allies for their alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. In a new book, investigative reporters Dan Klaidman and Michael Isikoff tell the story of the events that led to that moment—and the local prosecutor behind at all. Lawfa...

U.S. military operations against Houthi rebels in Yemen have escalated rapidly in recent weeks, culminating in a number of major strikes aimed at degrading their ability to threaten Red Sea shipping traffic. But the war powers reports the Biden administration has provided to Congress are raising questions about how it is legally justifying this latest military campaign.  To discuss the burgeo...

Everyone recognizes sanctions as one of the United States’ most powerful tools of economic statecraft. But few realize that much of the information behind sanctions designations comes from another office within the Treasury Department: specifically, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (or FinCEN). And over the past few years, as sanctions and other economic tools have become more and more imp...

This week on Rational Security , just Scott was joined for a Bizarro-world episode with guests Lawfare Senior Editor and Brookings Senior Fellow Molly Reynolds (back for a second episode in a row!) and Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower! They talked over some of the week’s big stories, including: “Two Houses, Divided Against Themselves...” The fate of key national security legislation—including the U...

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” recorded on January 25 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff, and Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower discussed all of the Section 3 litigation occuring across the country and Roger Parloff's recent article about whether the president is an office...

From March 12, 2021: President Joe Biden has conducted military strikes in Syria, has articulated legal theories under which the series of strikes were proper and has temporarily reined in the use of drone strikes. To talk about Biden and war powers, Benjamin Wittes sat down with John Bellinger, who served as the legal adviser at the State Department and the legal adviser for the National Security...

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. Kenneth L. Wainstein, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security; Jameel Jaffer, Executive Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University; and Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic abo...

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 regular basis. And Elon Musk says humans may land on Mars to set up settlements by 2030. But would mastering space be worth it? In their new book, “A City on Mars,” co-authors (and spouses) Dr. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith argue that it’s probably not...