The Lawfare Podcast: Patreon Edition

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 company, and his adult sons. The suit, brought by the state’s attorney general Letitia James, alleges that Trump and his company misled lenders about the former president’s net worth in order to secure better business deals. The case is not Trump’s on...

Brandon Stoddard was one of the most accomplished executives in broadcast television history. In his career at ABC, he helped bring to the small screen such legendary mini-series as “Roots” and “The Winds of War,” as well as the acclaimed television series “Moonlighting” and “Roseanne.” But arguably his most consequential and controversial decision was to air the made-for-TV movie “The Day After,”...

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 Netanyahu's judicial reform project.  Before October 7, judicial overhaul was all that anybody was talking about in Israeli politics—you know, a five-part legislative plan to assert parliamentary control over the judiciary and reduce Israel's checks and...

It’s been three years since the insurrection of January 6th. There have been congressional investigations, prosecutions, and legal reforms, and it’s looking like 2024 will be the year that Donald Trump and his inner circle finally confront the criminal justice system. But is that enough to respond to an existential threat to our democracy? It all started with a lie: that Trump had won the 2020 ele...

The conflict between Israel and Hamas is provoking heated debates about which side is in the right. Each accuses the other of things like war crimes. Oftentimes, they’re expressing a political or moral judgment—but the fact is, these are also legal terms. So for this discussion, we’re going to step back from the debates and try to take a dispassionate look at the law that applies here—internationa...

In May 2023, Montana  passed a new law  that would ban the use of TikTok within the state starting on January 1, 2024. But as of today, TikTok is still legal in the state of Montana—thanks to a preliminary injunction issued by a federal district judge, who found that the Montana law likely violated the First Amendment. In Texas, meanwhile, another federal judge recently upheld a more lim...

Welcome to our annual “Ask Us Anything” episode, a hallowed Lawfare tradition. Every news alert in 2023 seemed to bring new questions. But fear not, because  Lawfare  has answers.  Lawfare senior editors answered listener-submitted questions on the Israel-Gaza War, military aid to Ukraine, the Trump trials, gag orders against the former president, the presidential pardon abilit...

From September 27, 2014: A few weeks ago, Benjamin Wittes began listening to a podcast called  Hardcore History , which is the brainchild of a fellow named Dan Carlin. Carlin was doing a series of episodes on World War I, and Hardcore History is—let's just say—a different sort of podcast. The episodes are very long, very involved, and to Ben at least, completely riveting. Ben can't recommend...

This week on Rational Security , Quinta and Scott rang in the New Year with co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes by discussing some listener-submitted topics, including: What does the AUKUS deal mean for the Five Eyes intelligence relationship? How can courts enforce a gag order against former President Trump? What would a President Nikki Haley mean for the Republican Party’s foreign policy? Which is...

From February 9, 2019: From the increasing development of autonomous weapons systems to the expansion of the traditional battlefield to cyber and outer space, the evolution of warfare invites ethical and legal questions about what the future holds. In November 2018, Arnold & Porter's Veterans and Affiliates Leadership Organization hosted a panel discussion to explain what warfare will be like...

Former President Trump’s prosecution for mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate has brought an old law back to the front pages—the Espionage Act. Enacted more than a century ago, parts of that law allowing for the prosecution of those who mishandle or unduly disclose sensitive national security information, have helped provide the legal infrastructure for the modern classificati...

This week, we're taking time off for the holidays, so we reached into the Chatter archives for one of our favorites. In this episode from January 13, 2022, Shane Harris and David Priess teamed up to talk with John Sipher, a former senior intelligence officer who has gone Hollywood. With his partners at Spycraft Entertainment, John is bringing compelling and, yes, accurate stories about e...

Between 1865 and 1872, the first iteration of the Ku Klux Klan conducted a reign of terror across the former Confederate States, harassing, intimidating, and murdering freedpeople and their white allies. As violence spread with impunity across the South, Congress, at President Ulysses S. Grant’s urging, passed three Enforcement Acts, which radically expanded the federal government's ability to pro...

The Supreme Court last month heard oral arguments in  United States v. Rahimi , in which the Court will decide the constitutionality of a federal law that criminalizes the possession of firearms by individuals on whom state courts have imposed domestic violence protective orders. This case came to the Court following its June 2022 ruling in  New York State Rifle & Pistol Association...

The Supreme Court during World War II issued some of the most notorious opinions in its history, including the Japanese exclusion case, Korematsu v. United States , and the Nazi saboteur military commission case, Ex parte Quirin . For a fresh take on these and related cases and a broader perspective on the Supreme Court during World War II, Jack Goldsmith sat down with Cliff Sloan, a professor at...

This week on Rational Security , Quinta and Scott were joined by  Lawfare  Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Cyber Fellow Eugenia Lostri to talk through the big national security news waking us up from our long winter’s nap this week, including: “Rocky Mountain, Bye.” Colorado’s Supreme Court has bid goodbye to former President Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy (for now, at least), holding...

It's part two of our Lawfare year-end event. Yesterday, we brought you the headliner conversation with Adam Kinzinger. Today, it's three panels of Lawfare insiders talking about the year to come and the year that's passed. We did a panel on democracy, the Trump trials, and related matters. We did a panel on cybersecurity, cyber defense, and AI. And of course, we did a panel on foreign policy and t...

It's another episode of “Trump's Trials and Tribulations,” this one recorded on December 21 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. This week, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower and special guest Anthony Michael Kreis from the Georgia State University College of Law. They talked about the 11th Circuit's denial of Mark Meadows’s removal re...

The other day before a live audience, we had our Lawfare year-end extravaganza. It was two hours long, so we've broken it up for purposes of the podcast. In this episode, you'll hear Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes interview Adam Kinzinger, former representative and member of the Jan. 6 committee, who headlined the event. They talked about the big national security stories of 2023, bo...

Secure by Design means different things to different people. As part of Lawfare ’s ongoing project to understand what Secure by Design might mean in practice, we are trying to identify the open questions—areas where research or inquiry might help our collective understanding of the concept and how it might work.  Lawfare Contributing Editor Paul Rosenzweig sat down with three Senior Advi...

Modern representative democracy was born in darkness. Transparency in representative bodies can spur unintended consequences for freedom, while secrecy in those bodies can lead to optimal outcomes for the public. These are uncomfortable truths that emerge from the history of the US and French revolutionary experiences. Many of our governance challenges today, from malign misinformation to persiste...

In an end-of-the-day ruling on Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court struck Donald Trump from the Republican primary ballot on grounds that he was disqualified for the presidency as a result of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The decision now appears to be fast-tracked to Supreme Court consideration that could obliterate it or make it apply nationally.  To go over all the twists and turns, Law...

In 2021, the Wall Street Journal published a monster scoop: a series of articles about Facebook’s inner workings , which showed that employees within the famously secretive company had raised alarms about potential harms caused by Facebook’s products. Now, Jeff Horwitz, the reporter behind that scoop, has a new book out, titled “ Broken Code ”— which dives even deeper into the documents he uncover...

Bryan Vorndran is Assistant Director of the FBI's Cyber Division, a position he's held since around March 2021. Prior to that, he was the special agent in charge in New Orleans, and he's worked in Afghanistan and on the Joint Terrorism Task Force at the Washington Field Office. David Kris, Lawfare contributor and former Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division, and Bryan Cunni...

The conflict in Gaza may be approaching a turning point. An increasingly frustrated Biden administration has reportedly told Israeli officials that the military campaign needs to wind up within weeks, while even some Israeli officials have suggested that Hamas is on the verge of defeat. But as the physical and human devastation in Gaza continues to mount, the question of what comes after the confl...