The Lawfare Podcast

In today's Trump's Trials and Tribulations, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Tyler McBrien, Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic and Roger Parloff for a round-up of the most recent news in all of Donald Trump's ongoing legal cases.

The podcast was edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alibi Music.

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The annual U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) Legal Conference convenes lawyers across government and the private sector working on cyber issues. This year?s conference focused on the power of partnerships. Executive Editor Natalie Orpett moderated a panel, titled ?The Business of Battle: Navigating the Role of the Private Sector in Conflict,? featuring Jonathan Horowitz of the International Committee for the Red Cross, Laurie Blank of the Defense Department?s Office of the General Counsel, and Adam Hickey of the law firm Mayer Brown. They talked about how government and private sector actors bring different frames of reference and different equities when faced with a conflict, and how they can work together to address it.

To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.

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It's Trump's Trials and Tribulations, New York Trial Dispatch, April 23. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Tyler McBrien and Anna Bower to discuss what happened in the courtroom today.

The podcast was edited by Ian Enright of Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alibi Music.

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David Sanger has been writing for the New York Times since he graduated from college more than four decades ago. Over that period, Sanger has served as a business correspondent in Silicon Valley, the Times bureau chief in Japan, and has covered the last five presidents?which has given Sanger a front-row seat to U.S. foreign policy for much of the post-Cold War period. It is that experience that informs Sanger?s newest book, ?New Cold Wars,? in which Sanger argues?relying on a voluminous and colorful set of interviews with administration officials?that the U.S. has entered two new military, technological, and economic conflicts with Russia and China.

Lawfare Research Fellow Matt Gluck spoke about the book with Sanger. They discussed how the United States slipped into these conflicts through misreading Chinese and Russian geopolitical intentions and how the U.S. is seeking to navigate this new era. They also discussed how close Biden administration officials believed Vladimir Putin was to using a nuclear weapon in the fall of 2022.

For more about David:

His book ?New Cold Wars?David's Twitter Page

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Noam Osband and Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Ambassador Robert Lighthizer is the former United States Trade Representative in the Trump administration and the author of the 2023 book, ?No Trade Is Free: Changing Course, Taking on China, and Helping America's Workers.? He sat down with Jack Goldsmith to talk about his work as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative under President Reagan, why extreme neoliberal trade policy took hold in the 1990s, his core philosophy on trade and how it departed from the 1990s neoliberal consensus, and the main ways he implemented this view in the Trump administration and with what results. They also discussed the importance of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and why it was controversial, the extent to which the Biden administration adopted Lighthizer?s views on free trade, and the relationship between national security and trade policy.

To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.

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It's Trump's Trials and Tribulations, New York Trial Dispatch, April 22. Tyler McBrien sat down with Benjamin Wittes and Anna Bower to discuss what happened in the courtroom today.

The podcast was edited by Ian Enright of Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alibi Music.

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Lawfare?s Fellow in Technology Policy and Law, Eugenia Lostri, talks to Dr. Erica Lonergan, Assistant Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Dr. Lonergan recently authored a report making the case for establishing a U.S. Cyber Force as a way to address the military?s difficulty to recruit, train, and equip sufficient personnel to meet growing cyber challenges. They talked about the types of problems the cyber mission faces, different ways in which they can be addressed, and why establishing a distinct cyber force might be the best path forward.

To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.

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Starting Monday, April 22, the Lawfare Podcast feed is gonna look a little different.

Our daily show, the Lawfare Podcast, will remain on this feed, along with Rational Security and Chatter. We?ll also be adding some important new content as well.

Starting with opening statements in the New York state court trial against Donald Trump, we will discuss the events of the day?s proceedings on a short livestream dispatch on our YouTube channel. These dispatches, which we?ll record after court lets out on trial days (Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays), will be available in podcast form on this feed the following day. They?ll be called Trump Trials & Tribulations: N.Y. Trial Dispatch.

Our weekly Trump?s Trials & Tribulations livestream, which we?ve been holding on Thursdays, will move to Wednesday afternoons, when court is not in session. (We?ve been releasing podcast versions of the livestream on Saturdays; these will move to Thursdays.) In addition to a short overview of the previous week?s proceedings in the New York case, we will continue to bring you updates on the cases in Florida, Fulton County, and Washington, D.C. As always, our Material Supporters will be able to join the discussion via Riverside and ask questions live.

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This week on Rational Security, Alan and Quinta sat down with Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to talk through the week?s big national security news, including:

?Ayatollahs and Airstrikes.? In retaliation for an Israeli strike that killed several high-ranking Iranian military officers in Syria, over the weekend Iran launched a wave of drone and missile attacks against Israel. The vast majority of these were shot down by Israel and its allies, including notably Jordan, causing minimal injuries and damage in Israel. As Israel considers whether to respond, its American and European allies are putting pressure on it to deescalate. What?s Israel?s next move and can broader regional war be avoided??Beginning of the end or just the end of the beginning?? It has been six months since Hamas?s attack on October 7 and the start of Israel?s war in Gaza, which appears to be entering a new, potentially lower-intensity phase. Israel has withdrawn most of its troops from southern Gaza, although it still argues that it needs to invade Rafah, on the border with Egypt, to defeat Hamas. Meanwhile, violence between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank continues to increase. What?s next in the ongoing conflict??What?s a little obstruction between friends?? Earlier this week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Fischer v. United States, a case challenging the government?s use of a common statute used to prosecute participants in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The six conservative Justices appeared skeptical of the government?s argument that a statute that makes it a crime to ?obstruct any official proceeding? applies to physical disruptions. How is the Court likely to rule and how might such a ruling affect Donald Trump?s federal trial for trying to overthrow the 2020 election?

For object lessons, Quinta recommended a throwing-the-wife-under-the-bus update in New Jersey's Senator Bob Menendez's ongoing legal troubles, and Alan and Ben both recommended excellent, if anxiety-inducing, national security themed movies: the recently released Civil War and the upcoming War Game.

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It's another episode of ?Trump's Trials and Tribulations,? recorded on April 18 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff to talk about oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Fischer v. United States, over an obstruction charge used to charge hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, including former President Trump. They checked in on Judge Cannon and last week's hearing on motions from Trump's co-defendants, De Oliveira and Nauta. They also checked in with Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to discuss the ongoing jury selection in the hush money case in New York, why it is going faster than expected, and whether we can really expect opening statements to occur on Monday. And of course, they took audience questions from Lawfare Material Supporters on Riverside.

To receive ad-free podcasts and to be able to submit a question to the panelists, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.

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From November 29, 2017: The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Carpenter v. United States, a major Fourth Amendment case asking whether a warrant is necessary before law enforcement can obtain cell site data identifying a suspect phone's location from a service provider. Lawfare contributor and Fourth Amendment expert Orin Kerr discussed the case with Benjamin Wittes at Brookings shortly after the argument.

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NATO recently had its 75th birthday. And many say its trajectory traces the adage, ?the more things change, the more they stay the same.? That is, at least in some ways, NATO has returned to its original mission of collective self-defense. This means the alliance is concentrating less on out-of-area operations that have occupied much of its focus since the end of the Cold War. The transition comes at a time when many are questioning the U.S.?s long-term commitment to its NATO allies, especially in light of former President Trump?s recent comments about burden sharing within the alliance. 

Lawfare Research Fellow Matt Gluck discussed NATO?s current and likely future posture with Sara Moller, Associate Teaching Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. They spoke about NATO?s role in the war in Ukraine, the alliance?s focus in the Indo-Pacific, and how NATO is balancing arms control with maintaining strong nuclear deterrence.

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Author and speaker Virginia Postrel has spent many years researching and writing about, among other things, various aspects of the economics and societal context of fashion, glamour, and consumer choice. A few years ago her book The Fabric of Civilization tackled the history and global effects of fabric-making, dyeing, the clothing trade, and other textile-related activities. So when host David Priess had his curiosity piqued by some displays at the International Spy Museum related to silk, dyes, and espionage, he knew who to call.

David talked to Virginia about the origins of string and of fabric, togas in fiction and reality, the value of purple in the Roman Empire, the importance of fabrics for outfitting armies and making warships' sails, the development of weaving, how textile merchants led to the modern political economy, Jakob Fugger, Chinese silk and espionage, Spain's 200 year monopoly on vibrant reds, efforts to steal Spain' cochineal secret, the long history of indigo, French efforts to steal Indian indigo, the invention of synthetic dyes, modern sneaker culture and conceptions of value, Jackie Kennedy, fashion and glamour on the world stage today, and more.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The book The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia PostrelThe TV show The VikingsThe Chatter podcast episode Private Sector Intelligence with Lewis Sage-Passant, June 9, 2022Virginia Postrel's YouTube channelThe book The Power of Glamour by Virginia PostrelThe Star Wars prequel moviesThe TV show Game of ThronesThe TV show The RegimeThe article "Trump isn't just campaigning; He's selling his supporters a glamorous life" by Virginia Postrel, Washington Post, March 18, 20The movie The Hunger GamesThe book The Rosie Project by Graeme SimsionThe book Fifth Sun by Camilla Townsend

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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One year ago, fighting broke out in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In the intervening months, the death toll and humanitarian cost have been immense. 

And yet, the suffering has gone largely overlooked by the United States and European nations. As U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield recently said, ?Just five years after a revolution that offered a glimpse at a free, peaceful, democratic Sudan, people are losing hope. Aid workers have begun calling this conflict the forgotten war. Sudanese children are asking why the world has forgotten them.?

To learn more, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Reva Dhingra, a Policy Adviser at the International Rescue Committee, and Ciarán Donnelly, a Senior Vice President for International Programs, also at the IRC. They discussed the roots of the current conflict, the spillover effects, and the exacerbating effects of climate change. They also heard about what Ciarán saw on his recent trip to the Sudan-Chad border. 

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Last week, the House passed an overhaul and reauthorization of the FISA 702 program, a bill which now heads to the Senate for final passage. In the run-up to Senate consideration of it, Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matt Olsen joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to talk about the House bill. They talked about the new constraints it imposes on the Justice Department and the FBI, what it doesn't do, the warrant requirement that isn't there, some other provisions that have generated controversy, and the bill's prospects in the Senate this week.

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Friday morning, the House of Representatives suddenly?after failing to do so earlier in the week?took up the reauthorization of FISA 702. They considered a bunch of amendments, one of which failed on a tie vote, and then proceeded to pass reauthorization of 702. 

Immediately after the votes, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke with Lawfare Senior Editors Stephanie Pell and Molly Reynolds, and Lawfare Student Contributor Preston Marquis. They talked about how the center beat the coalition of the left and right on the key question of warrant requirements for U.S. person queries, about whether the civil liberties community gained anything in this protracted process or whether the administration just kicked its butt, about what happens now as the bill goes back to the Senate, and about all the little details that went into this bill. 

To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.

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Today marks the start of the first criminal trial of former President Donald Trump in New York City. Trump is facing 34 felony counts for his alleged falsification of business records related to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and others after the 2016 election. After months of pretrial hearings, motions to dismiss and for an adjournment, motions for recusal, and more, jury selection in the case begins today.

In light of today?s events, Lawfare Associate Editor Katherine Pompilio sat down with Lawfare Legal Fellow and Courts Correspondent Anna Bower, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, and Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff who will be covering the trial at length. They discussed the case?s background, Trump?s various attempts to delay the proceedings, how jury selection will work, our plans for covering the trial, and more.

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This week on Rational Security, Alan and Quinta were joined again by Brookings Senior Fellow and Lawfare Senior Editor Molly Reynolds to talk over the week?s national security news, including:

?The 702nd Time?s the Charm?? Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was originally set to expire on December 31, 2023. But somehow, Congress has managed to keep kicking the can down the road?and we?re once again in the middle of an argument about whether and to what extent the legislature should reform the bulk surveillance authority. How did we end up here, and is there any indication that Congress will manage to pass a lasting reauthorization in some form this time around??Magic Mike.? Speaker of the House Mike Johnson?s troubles don?t stop with FISA, however. He?s also tangled up in a prolonged dispute with his caucus over the U.S. aid to Ukraine?which is becoming a matter of rapidly increasing urgency, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warning that his country ?will lose the war? if the aid is not approved. Johnson now says he?ll put his own aid package on the table, still tying that aid to another tranche of aid to Israel. But will the House actually vote this time, or is this just another head fake??Finally, We Can Talk About Linux.? A few weeks ago, a single software engineer alerted the world to an alarming discovery: malicious code inside a key piece of Linux software that, had it gone undetected, could have caused a catastrophic cyberattack. What on earth actually happened here? And what could stop it from happening again?

For object lessons, Alan recommended an adorable giraffe growth chart for keeping track of your child's height. Quinta took a cue from Molly and endorsed a podcast by a local NPR affiliate??Lost Patients,? a series about mental health care from KUOW and the Seattle Times. And Molly shared a story about misprinted pens from the Clinton impeachment trial, as told in Peter Baker?s book "The Breach."

Other references from this week?s show:

A chart explaining how dark it gets during a total solar eclipseBruce Schneier?s Lawfare article about the XZ Utils backdoor

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It's another episode of ?Trump's Trials and Tribulations,? recorded on April 11 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside. Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic sat down with Legal Fellow Anna Bower and Senior Editor Roger Parloff to talk about the upcoming jury selection in the hush money case against Trump in New York City and what Judge Cannon is up to in Florida, including her ruling on whether to unseal witness names. They also checked in on Fulton County to see what Fani Willis was up to and talked about Jack Smith's brief to the Supreme Court in Trump's presidential immunity defense. And of course, they took audience questions from Lawfare Material Supporters on Riverside.

To receive ad-free podcasts and to be able to submit a question to the panelists, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/c/trumptrials.

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From January 17, 2015: This week, Ben Wittes and Matt Waxman sat down with Daniel Reisner, former head of the International Law Branch of the Israeli Defense Forces and current partner with Herzog, Fox and Neeman. Reisner has also served as a senior member of Israel?s peace delegations over the years, participating in negotiation sessions and summits including those at Camp David. He continues to advise senior members of the Israeli government on a variety of issues relating to international law and operational security issues. Colonel Reisner was in New York on a visit sponsored by Academic Exchange for a series of events and discussions on contemporary national security challenges. His experiences set up a wide-ranging conversation touching on everything from the law of targeted killing to the role of morality in operational law advice.

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The Insurrection Act is a provision that allows the president to deploy the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement. It?s been invoked dozens of times by presidents to respond to crises in the over 230 years that it?s been around, but it hasn?t been reformed in centuries. In recent years, the Insurrection Act has come back into public focus because of its implication in a number of domestic crises, prompting a renewed conversation about whether it?s finally time to curb the sweeping powers afforded to the executive in this unique federal law.

On April 8, the American Law Institute released a set of principles for Insurrection Act reform, prepared by a group of 10 individuals with backgrounds in constitutional law, national security law, and military law. The co-chairs of this group were Jack Goldsmith, Lawfare Co-Founder and Harvard Law School Professor, and Bob Bauer, Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law. They joined Lawfare Associate Editor Hyemin Han to talk about the history of the Insurrection Act, to parse out the recommendations the American Law Institute is making for reform, and to make the case for reforming the act in 2024. 

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For decades, country music has had a close and special relationship to the U.S. military. In his new book, Cold War Country, historian Joseph Thompson shows how the leaders of Nashville?s Music Row found ways to sell their listeners on military service, at the same time they sold country music to people in uniform.

Shane Harris spoke with Thompson about how, as he puts it, Nashville and the Pentagon ?created the sound of American patriotism.? Thompson?s story spans decades and is filled with famous singers like Roy Acuff, Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, and Lee Greenwood. Collectively, Thompson says, these artists helped to forge the close bonds between their genre and the military, but also helped to transform ideas of race, partisanship, and influenced the idea of what it means to be an American. 

Songs, people, TV shows, and books discussed in this episode include: 

Thompson?s book Cold War Country: How Nashville's Music Row and the Pentagon Created the Sound of American Patriotism https://uncpress.org/book/9781469678368/cold-war-country/ 

?Goin? Steady? by Faron Young https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNqhVyPxPk8 

Grandpa Jones https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/grandpa-jones 

?Hee Haw? https://www.heehaw.com/ 

The Black Opry https://www.blackopry.com/ 

?Okie from Muskogee? by Merle Haggard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68cbjlLFl4U 

?Cowboy Carter? by Beyoncé https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/beyonce-cowboy-carter-tops-country-album-chart-number-one-1234998548/ 

?God Bless the U.S.A.? by Lee Greenwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KoXt9pZLGM 

Learn more about Joseph Thompson and his work: 

https://www.josephmthompson.com/ 

https://www.history.msstate.edu/directory/jmt50 

https://twitter.com/jm_thompson?lang=en 

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Last week, 40 Democratic members of the House of Representatives wrote a letter to President Biden expressing concern and outrage over an Israeli airstrike that killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen. The lawmakers urged the president to reconsider his recent authorization of an arms transfer package to Israel and withhold any future offensive arms transfers if the strike was found to have violated U.S. or international law. They also urged Biden to withhold arms transfers if the humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate. 

Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Sarah Harrison, a Senior Analyst with the International Crisis Group?s U.S. program and former Associate General Counsel at the Defense Department?s Office of General Counsel, International Affairs. They talked about the laws and policies that govern U.S. security assistance, what recent reporting may or may not tell us about Israel?s law of war compliance, and the difficulty of some of these assessments. They also discussed what President Biden risks by not applying conditions on military aid abroad.

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Hosted by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Cyber Initiative and Aspen Digital, Verify 2024 brings together journalists and cyber and tech policy experts to discuss critical issues in cybersecurity. For this live recording of the Lawfare Podcast, Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down at Verify 2024 to talk about information ecology and 19th-century naturalism with Alicia Wanless, the Director of the Partnership for Countering Influence Operations at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Chinmayi Sharma, an Associate Professor at Fordham Law School.

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In the early morning on March 26, a Singapore-flagged cargo ship crashed into Baltimore?s Francis Scott Key Bridge. The bridge collapsed, resulting in the death of six of the eight individuals conducting maintenance on the bridge. The incident has disrupted commuter traffic and the transport of hazardous materials, and it has halted shipping traffic at the Port of Baltimore, among other effects.

Lawfare Research Fellow Matt Gluck discussed the bridge?s collapse, how authorities responded to it, and what it all means for the resilience of U.S. critical infrastructure and the state of crisis response with Juliette Kayyem, a professor of international security at the Harvard Kennedy School?who recently wrote a book on disaster management. Was the bridge adequately protected? How should governments and the private sector prepare to both prevent crises, but perhaps more importantly, prepare for the aftermath when they inevitably occur? 

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There is a lot to keep up with in U.S. cybersecurity law and policy these days. To talk about the current regulatory landscape and the progression of the DOJ?s strategy relating to takedown and disruption efforts, Lawfare Senior Editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Jim Dempsey, Senior Policy Advisor at the Stanford Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, and John Carlin, Partner at Paul Weiss. They talked about the SEC?s cyber disclosure rule, the new executive order focused on preventing access to Americans? bulk sensitive personal data, the LockBit and Volt Typhoon disruption efforts, and more. 

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This week on Rational Security, Alan and Quinta were joined by Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett to talk through the week's big national security news, including:

?A Gag Order Prevents Me From Telling You What This Segment Is Called.? After former President Donald Trump attacked the daughter of Justice Juan Merchan, who is overseeing his New York hush-money trial, Justice Merchan expanded the gag order he had previously imposed to prohibit Trump from attacking his family. This is only the latest in what has become a pattern of Trump testing gag orders in his many legal cases. Why have gag orders become such an important part of the Trump cases and how far should they reach??The Global Importance of the Middle East Is That It Keeps the Far East and the Near East From Encroaching on Each Other.? Even by the standards of the last few months, it?s been a particular busy week in Israel. In just 48 hours, an Israeli strike in Syria killed high-level Iranian military officials, another strike in Gaza killed several aid workers in a World Central Kitchen convoy, and a controversy around conscripting ultra-Orthodox men into the IDF is threatening Benjamin Netanyahu?s coalition. What comes next and is the crisis in the Middle East entering an even more chaotic period??Disinformation Peking Turducken.? An amazing thread on X involving Alex Jones, Russian lies about the CIA sending Nazis to fight in Ukraine, and a Chinese MAGA disinformation campaign is a preview of just how messy the 2024 electoral season is going to be. Is this just 2016 all over again, and what, if anything, can be done to safeguard the U.S. information space against foreign actors?

For object lessons, Alan suggested the new Netflix adaptation of the "3 Body Problem", Quinta shared a New Yorker article about the United Kingdom's recent decline, and Natalie recommended the Serial podcast's new season on Guantánamo Bay.

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It's another episode of ?Trump's Trials and Tribulations,? recorded on April 4 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower and Lawfare Senior Editors Roger Parloff and Quinta Jurecic to talk about Judge Cannon's order denying both Trump's motion to dismiss the classified documents case based on the Presidential Records Act and Jack Smith's request for a ruling on jury instructions prior to trial. They also discussed the preliminary ruling in Jeffrey Clark's bar discipline hearing, Judge McAfee's order denying Trump's motion to dismiss criminal charges in Fulton County on First Amendment grounds, and Justice Merchan's expanded gag order against Trump in New York. And of course, they took audience questions from Lawfare Material Supporters on Riverside.

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From December 2, 2020: The top Iranian nuclear scientist has been killed, apparently in an Israeli strike. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who has long been the mastermind of the Iranian nuclear program, was gunned down in an attack with a remote control machine gun. Iranian reprisals are expected, although their timing and nature is not clear. It also puts the incoming Biden administration, which is looking to bring back the Iran nuclear deal, in a bit of a pickle.

To chew it all over, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Scott R. Anderson, international law specialist and Lawfare senior editor; Suzanne Maloney, the vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution and an Iran scholar; and Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings where he focuses on Israeli policy. They talked about why the Israelis would conduct this operation, how effective its killing of Iranian nuclear scientists has been, whether any of it is legal and what it means for the future of U.S.-Iran relations.

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A new report from the POPVOX Foundation focuses on a little-known and hugely under-appreciated congressional effort: that of congressional staffers helping Afghan allies flee the country during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan  

Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with the report?s author, Anne Meeker. They talked about what staffers did to help, the challenges they faced, and how the experience exposed both weaknesses and strengths in how Congress functions. 

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The "deep state." The "blob." Foreign policy elites are often so labeled, misunderstood, and denigrated. But what influence on presidents and on public opinion do they actually have?

Elizabeth Saunders, professor of political science at Columbia, has researched this topic deeply and written about it in her new book, The Insiders' Game. David Priess spoke with her about her path to studying foreign policy, the ups and downs of archival research, the meaning of foreign policy "elites," the differences between the influences of Democratic and Republican elites, a counterfactual President Al Gore's decisionmaking about invading Iraq, pop cultural representations of foreign policy elites, how heightened polarization changes the dynamics of elite influence, and more.

Among the works mentioned in this episode:

The book The Insiders' Game by Elizabeth Saunders

The book Leaders at War by Elizabeth Saunders

The TV show The West Wing

The movie The Hunt for Red October

The TV show The Diplomat

The TV show The Americans

The movie Thirteen Days

The article "Politics Can't Stop at the Water's Edge" by Elizabeth Saunders, Foreign Policy (March/April 2024)

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.

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Paul Beckett was the Washington Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal. But since the arrest of the newspaper's Russia correspondent, Evan Gershkovich, last year in Russia on bogus spying charges, he has been working full time on advocating for the reporter's release. In connection with the one-year anniversary of Gershkovich's arrest, he joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the case. What do we know about the charges against the young reporter? What is the U.S. government doing to secure his release? What progress, if any, has been made? And how is Gershkovich holding up in prison in Moscow?

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The use of AI to make decisions about individuals raises the issue of contestability. When automated systems are used by governments to decide whether to grant or deny benefits, or calculate medical needs, the affected person has a right to know why that decision was made, and challenge it. But what does meaningful contestability of AI systems look like in practice?

To discuss this question, Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri was joined by Jim Dempsey, Senior Policy Advisor at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, and Ece Kamar, Managing Director of the AI Frontiers Lab at Microsoft. In January, they convened a workshop with stakeholders across disciplines to issue recommendations that could help governments embrace AI while enabling the contestability required by law. They talked about the challenges that the use of AI creates for contestability, how their recommendations align with recently published OMB guidelines, and how different communities can contribute to the responsible use of AI in government.

 

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The Federal Trade Commission?s data, privacy, and AI cases have been all over the news recently, from its proposed settlement with Avast Antivirus to its lawsuit against data broker Kochava.

Lawfare Contributor Justin Sherman sat down with Ben Wiseman, the Associate Director of the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection at the FTC, who oversees a team of attorneys and technologists working on technology and consumer protection. They discussed the FTC?s recent focus on health, location, and kids? privacy; its ongoing data privacy and security rulemaking; and how the FTC looks beyond financial penalties for companies to prevent and mitigate harm to consumers.

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In early February, the European Union approved a major overhaul of its immigration laws. If approved by EU member states, the pact will drastically curtail the rights of migrants and asylum seekers entering the European Union. It?s part of a trend we?re seeing all over the world, including here in the U.S.  

Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Steve Meili, Professor of International Human Rights Law at University of Minnesota Law School. They discussed the EU Pact?s new provisions, why critics are calling them a violation of human rights law, and how asylum and migration law is evolving globally. 

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This week on Rational Security, Alan and Quinta were joined again by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien and Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman?also of Georgetown University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies? to talk over the week?s national security news, including:

?Terror in Moscow.? On Friday, March 22, a group of gunmen unleashed an attack on a concert hall outside Moscow that killed over 130 people, shooting into a crowd of concertgoers before setting the hall on fire. The Islamic State in Khorasan, the Afghanistan branch of ISIS known as ISIS-K, quickly claimed credit for the attack, and Russian authorities have arrested four suspects. The Kremlin, without evidence, has also continued to hint that Ukraine is somehow responsible. What does the attack tell us about ISIS-K, and what does it mean for the Russian government??April, Come She Will.? After a brief delay, Donald Trump?s hush money trial in Manhattan has been scheduled to begin on April 15?the first of Trump?s criminal cases to go to trial. Meanwhile, a New York appeals court threw Trump a lifeline, reducing his appeal bond in the civil fraud case against him from half a billion dollars to $175 million. Will ol? Donny Trump be able to wriggle out of this jam once again??Come On, Aileen.? Judge Aileen Cannon is at it again down in Fort Pierce, Florida. As she presides over Trump?s classified documents case, motions are piling up on her desk without any sign of a ruling, and she issued a strange, convoluted order instructing both parties to ?engage with? potential jury instructions reflecting unusual readings of the Presidential Records Act in relation to the Espionage Act. Just what is Judge Cannon doing? And how, if at all, can Jack Smith respond? 

For object lessons, Alan endorsed the podcast ?Next Year in Moscow,? on Russians living in exile who departed their country after the beginning of Putin?s war with Ukraine. Tyler sang the praises of Waxahatchee?s new album ?Tigers Blood.? And Quinta recommended a reflection on Baltimore?s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge.

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It's another episode of ?Trump's Trials and Tribulations,? recorded on March 28 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower, Managing Editor Tyler McBrien, Associate Editor Katherine Pompilio, and Senior Fellows Roger Parloff and Quinta Jurecic to talk about the Monday hearing in New York where Judge Merchan ordered a new trial start date of April 15, the Thursday motions hearing in Fulton County, and why the Fulton County case isn't stayed as the defendants appeal Judge McAfee's decision to not disqualify DA Fani Willis. They also discussed Roger Parloff's article about what the government can do about Judge Cannon's odd proposed jury instructions and the bar discipline proceedings against John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark. And of course, they took audience questions from Material Supporters on Riverside.

To be able to submit questions to the panelists, become a Material Supporter at lawfaremedia.org/support.

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From April 7, 2018: Vladimir Kara-Murza is the vice chairman of Open Russia, the founder of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation and a contributing opinion writer for the Washington Post. On Wednesday, Kara-Murza spoke to Alina Polyakova about last month's presidential elections in Russia, the poisoning of Sergei Skirpal, and the future of Russia under and after Putin.

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Shannon Togawa Mercer served as Lawfare's Managing Editor and then went on to quite a career shift. She now negotiates with ransomware bad actors. She is a cybersecurity and privacy lawyer at WilmerHale and has developed a specialized practice in responding to cybersecurity incidents, many of them involving foreign malware gangs.  

She joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to talk about this odd area of legal practice. Why do you need a big law firm when your computer files are suddenly frozen? Is it legal to negotiate with and pay off foreign ransomware gangs? How do you do the negotiations anyway? Do they cut you a deal if you're polite? And what is it like to be recruited by the malware gangs that you are negotiating with? 

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Without warning, North Korea launches a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile at the United States. American satellites detect the launch within seconds, setting off a frantic, harrowing sequence of events that threatens to engulf the planet in a nuclear holocaust. 

That?s the terrifying hypothetical storyline that journalist Annie Jacobsen imagines in her new book. It?s a minute-by-minute, and occasionally second-by-second account of how the vast U.S. national security apparatus would respond to a ?bolt out of the blue? attack with a nuclear weapon. It?s a riveting story and the supreme cautionary tale. 

Shane Harris spoke with Jacobsen about the book, the present threat of a nuclear world war, and her body of work, which has dug deeply into the dark corners of intelligence and national security. 

Books, interviews, movies and TV shows discussed in this episode include:  

Nuclear War: A Scenario https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/748264/nuclear-war-by-annie-jacobsen/ 

Chatter interview with A.B. Stoddard about The Day After https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/chatter-the-day-after-and-dad-with-a.-b.-stoddard 

Top Gun: Maverick https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1745960/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_top%2520gun 

Tom Clancy?s Jack Ryan https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5057054/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_3_nm_5_q_jack%2520ry 

Find out more about Annie Jacobsen on:  

Her Website: https://anniejacobsen.com/ 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/anniejacobsen?lang=en 

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One of the gravest threats to U.S. national security today?and also one of the newest?is the risk of cyberattacks. They come in many forms, and they can incapacitate companies, institutions, and even the government. 

To better understand these threats?and how the government is responding to them­?Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Lawfare Contributing Editor Brandon Van Grack sat down with Brett Leatherman, Deputy Assistant Director for Cyber Operations at the FBI. They discussed the FBl's recent operations, threats from both state actors and criminal gangs, and the role of the private sector in U.S. cybersecurity.

This is the latest episode in our special series, ?The Regulators,? co-sponsored with Morrison Foerster, in which we talk with senior government officials working at the front lines of U.S. national security policy.

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Benjamin Nathans is a professor of Russian and Soviet history at the University of Pennsylvania, with a particular specialty in the history of Russian and Soviet dissidents. He joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to talk about the legacy of Alexei Navalny, his life and death, and how Navalny was similar to and different from other dissidents, both recent and historic. They talked about how his death was related to the sham elections in Russia and the protests that he earned in response to those elections, whether there is anybody who can carry the flag that he bore going forward, and the future of the Russian liberal movement.

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In February, Special Counsel Robert Hur released a report declining to prosecute President Biden for his handling of classified material. Earlier this month, Hur testified before the House Judiciary Committee answering questions from irritated members on both sides of the aisle who were critical of Hur?s work. Hur?s report and its fallout have reignited long-simmering questions about the usefulness of the special counsel as an institution. 

Lawfare Research Fellow Matt Gluck sat down with an all-star crew of Lawfare regulars?Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare Co-Founder and Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic, and Lawfare Contributing Editor and former career federal prosecutor Chuck Rosenberg?to break it all down. They discussed the history of the special counsel institution and its predecessors, its current flaws, and how it should change. 

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One year ago, Elizabeth Tsurkov, a graduate student at Princeton University, was abducted by the terrorist organization Kata'ib Hezbollah in Baghdad, where she was doing fieldwork. Since that day, her sister, Emma Tsurkov, has been campaigning for and seeking her release. 

On Thursday, Emma Tsurkov held a rally outside the Iraqi embassy, demanding action to free her sister. Afterward, she sat down with Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss her sister's very upsetting case. Who is Kata'ib Hezbollah, and why are they holding hostage an Israeli graduate student? Who is Elizabeth Tsurkov, and how did she come to be in Baghdad in the first place? Which government is responsible for securing her release? And why does the United States keep providing military aid to a government that is in bed with Kata'ib Hezbollah, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization? 

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This week on Rational Security, Alan and Quinta were joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien and Lawfare Legal Fellow and Courts Correspondent Anna Bower to talk through the week's big national security news, including:

?No v. Wade.? The long saga of the personal relationship between Fani Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney prosecuting Donald Trump for election interference, and Nathan Wade, the prosecutor Willis put in charge of the case, hit an inflection point when Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the criminal case, ruled that, though there was no actual conflict of interest, ?the appearance of impropriety remains,? and ordered Willis to either recuse herself from the case or to remove Wade from his role as prosecutor. Wade promptly resigned, clearing the way for the case to continue. Is this the right resolution to the controversy, and what does it say about the future of the Fulton County case, especially if Trump appeals and tries to force Willis?s disqualification??Pleading the Fifth?Circuit.? In a sign that even the conservative Justices of the Supreme Court may be losing patience with the Fifth Circuit, Missouri received a chilly reception in oral argument on Monday when it tried to defend a circuit opinion preventing the government from virtually any communication with social media companies about removing misinformation and harmful content. How is the Supreme Court likely to rule and what should the rule be when it comes to concerns around government ?jawboning.??Psy-Oops.? Reuters has reported that, during the Trump administration, the CIA engaged in an influence operation on Chinese social media to spread negative information about Xi Jinping and other Chinese leaders. Was it effective, was it a good idea, and what should U.S. intelligence priorities be with regard to China?

For object lessons, Quinta shared a wild story about a pro-Trump lawyer arrested on a bench warrant while in court. Alan recommended a new Guy Ritchie show. And Tyler shared Quinta's brilliant visual aid to understanding Trump's litigation delay tactics.

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It's another episode of ?Trump's Trials and Tribulations,? recorded on March 21 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Riverside. Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic sat down with Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes and Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff to talk about Trump's SCOTUS brief in his presidential immunity appeal and recent evidentiary rulings from Judge Merchan in the New York criminal case against Trump. They also discussed Judge Cannon's odd proposed jury instructions, the relevance?or irrelevance?of the Presidential Records Act in the Mar-a-Lago case, and how the government may proceed. And of course they took audience questions from Lawfare Material Supporters on Riverside.

To be able to submit questions to the panelists, become a Material Supporter at lawfaremedia.org/support.

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From May 16, 2022: In order to tell you this story, we need to start at the beginning, just before the U.S. invasion. After 9/11, the CIA set their sights on al-Qaeda?s base in Afghanistan. After a military invasion that fall, people up and down the chain of command learned that in order to fight this war the U.S. needed local partners to help.

Allies is a podcast about America?s eyes and ears over 20 years of war in Afghanistan. This show will take you from the frontlines of the war to the halls of Congress to find out: How did this happen?

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Today, we?re bringing you an episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem.

Last week the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would require ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the popular social media app TikTok, to divest its ownership in the platform or face TikTok being banned in the United States. Although prospects for the bill in the Senate remain uncertain, President Biden has said he will sign the bill if it comes to his desk, and this is the most serious attempt yet to ban the controversial social media app.

Today's podcast is the latest in a series of conversations we've had about TikTok. Matt Perault, the Director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, led a conversation with Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Ramya Krishnan, a Senior Staff Attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. They talked about the First Amendment implications of a TikTok ban, whether it's a good idea as a policy matter, and how we should think about foreign ownership of platforms more generally.

Disclaimer: Matt's center receives funding from foundations and tech companies, including funding from TikTok.

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Charlie Sykes recently stepped down as host of the Bulwark Podcast. He's a regular commentator on MSNBC, and has written a number of books. He tells the story here of his political journey, from being a page for the Wisconsin delegation at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, to being a working journalist increasingly disenchanted with conventional liberalism, to finding a home in Reagan Republicanism and becoming more of a political warrior than he ever meant to be--and then leaving the whole thing behind over Trumpism.

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Today, we?re bringing you an episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem.

On March 18, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, concerning the potential First Amendment implications of government outreach to social media platforms?what?s sometimes known as jawboning. The case arrived at the Supreme Court with a somewhat shaky evidentiary record, but the legal questions raised by government requests or demands to remove online content are real.

To make sense of it all, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic and Matt Perault, the Director of the Center on Technology Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill, called up Alex Abdo, the Litigation Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. While the law is unsettled, the Supreme Court seemed skeptical of the plaintiffs? claims of government censorship. But what is the best way to determine what contacts and government requests are and aren't permissible?

If you?re interested in more, you can read the Knight Institute?s amicus brief in Murthy here and Knight?s series on jawboning?including Perault?s reflections?here.

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