On Jan. 28, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent out an email offering a “deferred resignation program” to over 2 million federal employees, encouraging them to resign effective Sept. 30. The offer is only open until Feb. 6—and in the intervening days since OPM announced the program, federal employees have received a blizzard of followup emails offering confusing and rapidly changing information. Writing in Lawfare , Nick Bednar has examined the OPM offer an...
Feb 05, 2025•48 min
Today’s episode is a recording of Feb. 3 livestream that Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson hosted with George Ingram and Tony Pipa, both Senior Fellows in Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution, and Jonathan Katz, Senior Director of the Anti-Corruption, Democracy, and Security project also at Brookings—all three of whom are also alumni of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Among other topics, they discussed the USAID’s tumultuous experience over the first t...
Feb 04, 2025•56 min
Nema Milaninia, a former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court and International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and a current partner at the law firm King & Spalding, joins Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to discuss legislation in the U.S. Congress and recent executive actions taken by the Trump administration to, once again, sanction the International Criminal Court. Milaninia discusses what is motivating the most recent sanctions campaign, brok...
Feb 03, 2025•44 min
From May 9, 2022: Many individuals seeking asylum or other forms of immigration relief in the U.S. are subject to a program run by Immigration Customs Enforcement, or ICE, called the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which uses various kinds of tracking technologies as a way of keeping tabs on individuals who are not detained in ICE custody. Stephanie Pell sat down with Sejal Zota, legal director of Just Futures Law, to talk about this program and the kinds of tracking technologies it em...
Feb 02, 2025•36 min
In a live conversation on January 30 , Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Roger Parloff and contributing editor Renee DiResta about the confirmation hearings of Kash Patel to be FBI director, Tulsi Gabbard to be the director of national intelligence, and Robert F. Kennedy to be the health and human services secretary. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/p...
Feb 01, 2025•1 hr 7 min
For today’s episode, Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Chris Mirasola, an assistant professor at the University of Houston Law Center and former Defense Department lawyer, to talk through the ways that the Trump administration is using the military to enforce its new immigration policies. They discussed the steps the Trump administration has taken thus far, from transporting migrants on military flights to threatening to send them to Guantanamo Bay; the le...
Jan 31, 2025•44 min
This week, the Office of Management and Budget announced a breathtakingly broad freeze on federal funds—before scrambling to clarify that freeze and seemingly rolling it back only two days later. The crisis touches on profound questions about the congressional power of the purse and limitations on presidential power under the Impoundment Control Act. To explain what’s going on, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with Eloise Pasachoff, a professor at Georgetown Law School, and Zachary Pri...
Jan 30, 2025•50 min
This week, Scott was joined by his colleagues Kevin and Eugenia—in what is sadly her last episode before leaving Lawfare —as well as special guest Peter Harrell for a deep dive into the week’s national security news, including: “Tariff or Takeoff.” The Trump administration got into what is arguably its first major international spat this week when Colombia’s refusal to accept a U.S. military flight returning migrants to that country led President Trump to threaten an array of punitive measures, ...
Jan 29, 2025•1 hr 16 min
Peter Hyun, then-Acting Chief of the Enforcement Bureau at the Federal Communications Commission, discusses with Lawfare Contributing Editor Justin Sherman the FCC’s data security and cybersecurity enforcement authorities and how those authorities fit into addressing national security threats to the communications supply chain. He covers some recent enforcement actions and issues in this area, ranging from the FCC’s data breach notification rule to submarine cables to rip-and-replace efforts tar...
Jan 29, 2025•38 min
In today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Z. Rozenshtein speaks with his University of Minnesota Law colleague, Nick Bednar, about the wave of Day 1 executive orders affecting the civil service. Bednar recently analyzed these orders in a piece for Lawfare . They discuss what the orders say, how they might be challenged in court, and what this means for the next four years and beyond. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreo...
Jan 28, 2025•1 hr 5 min
In a live conversation on January 23 , Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editors Scott R. Anderson, Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Alan Rozenshtein and assistant law professor at Pace University Amelia Wilson about the first batch of executive orders by President Trump in his second term, including suspending enforcement of the TikTok ban, the use of the military at the border, the birthright citizenship order, and the legal challenges some ...
Jan 27, 2025•56 min
From February 15, 2023: The Jan. 6 committee’s final report on the insurrection is over 800 pages, including the footnotes. But there’s still new information coming out about the committee’s findings and its work. Last week, we brought you an interview with Dean Jackson, one of the staffers who worked on the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation into the role of social media in the insurrection. Today, we’re featuring a conversation with Jacob Glick, who served as investigative counsel on the co...
Jan 26, 2025•57 min
From November 3, 2023: Since Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, the Israel-Hamas war has largely been fought in Gaza, a small strip of land along the border of the Mediterranean Sea. But farther inland, there has been an uptick in hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank. Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem says that at least 13 Palestinian herding communities in the West Bank have been forcibly displaced since the beginning of the war d...
Jan 25, 2025•56 min
Aram Gavoor, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at GW Law, joins Kevin Frazier, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare , to summarize and analyze the Trump administration’s initial moves to pivot the nation’s AI policy toward relentless innovation. The duo discuss the significance of Trump rescinding the Biden administration’s 2023 executive order on AI as well as the recently announced Stargate Project. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/...
Jan 24, 2025•35 min
Alexis Loeb, the former Deputy Chief of the Capitol Siege Section of the Department of Justice, sits down with Lawfare Senior Editor Roger Parloff to talk about President Trump's blanket pardons and commutations for everyone her unit prosecuted. She discusses how she became involved with the cases; how they were handled by prosecutors, judges, and juries; a couple of cases she personally prosecuted; and her views on the impact of Trump's pardon proclamation. To receive ad-free podcast...
Jan 23, 2025•38 min
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues and hosts emeriti Benjamin Wittes, Quinta Jurecic, and Alan Rozenshtein to talk through the week’s big—and we mean BIG—national security news, including: “Executive Disorder.” America’s once-and-future President Donald Trump hit the ground running, issuing dozens of executive actions on his first afternoon in office, from once again withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement to pardoning or commuting the sentences for almost everyone involv...
Jan 22, 2025•1 hr 21 min
For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with a panel of leading experts to discuss the recent ceasefire in Gaza, including: Natan Sachs, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Dan Byman, Professor at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Joel Braunold, Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace; and Dr. Dana El-Kurd, Professor at the University of Richmond. They discusse...
Jan 22, 2025•1 hr 5 min
Senior Editor at Lawfare Eugenia Lostri sits down with Kevin Frazier, Lawfare ’s Tarbell Fellow in Artificial Intelligence, to discuss recent disruptions to undersea cables. They talk about the ongoing investigations; the challenges that weather, cooperation, and jurisdiction can present; and the plans in place to protect the cables from accidents and sabotage. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare . You ca...
Jan 21, 2025•41 min
From July 11, 2022: We often use the terms democracy and liberal democracy interchangeably, but they're not the same thing. Democracy means majority rule and public participation. Liberal democracy means democracy plus minority rights. There's no guarantee that democracy will be liberal. And in fact, some of the same things that enable democracy can also undermine its liberal commitments. Zac Gershberg, a professor of journalism and media studies at Idaho State University and Sean Illing, the ho...
Jan 20, 2025•57 min
From February 11, 2017: Donald Trump's election as president brought a surge of interest in the previously obscure Emoluments Clause, which prohibits any “Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States]” from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” Norm Eisen and Richard Painter, ethics experts for Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, have been leading the charge to hold Trump accountable u...
Jan 19, 2025•39 min
From January 7, 2017: 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-elect Donald Trump called the intelligence community's assessment of Russian interference a "political witch hunt." In that spirit, Benjamin Wittes brought Lawfare managing editor Susan Hennessey and former GCHQ information security specialist Matt Tait on the podcast to discuss evidence of Rus...
Jan 18, 2025•46 min
Janet Egan, Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and Lennart Heim, an AI researcher at RAND, join Kevin Frazier, a Tarbell Fellow at Lawfare , to analyze the interim final rule on AI diffusion announced by the Bureau of Industry and Security on January 13, 2025. This fourth-quarter effort by the Biden Administration to shape AI policy may have major ramifications on the global race for AI dominance. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Materia...
Jan 17, 2025•39 min
In a live conversation on January 15 , Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien and Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Scott Anderson about the second day of confirmation hearings for President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet. They discussed the hearings for Pam Bondi’s nomination to be attorney general, John Ratcliffe’s nomination to be CIA director, and Marco Rubio’s nomination to be secretary of state, and...
Jan 16, 2025•1 hr
This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Roger Parloff, Renée DiResta, and Tyler McBrien to talk through the week’s big national security news, including: “The Art of the Heel.” As President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration nears, the various legal cases against him are gradually winding down to their inevitable end. But Trump is not letting them go quietly: instead, he has fought certain final steps tooth and nail, ranging from the (mostly meaningless) sentencing in his New York c...
Jan 15, 2025•1 hr 19 min
In a live conversation on January 14 , Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editor Anna Bower about the confirmation hearing of Pete Hegseth by the Senate Armed Services committee on his expected nomination to be secretary of defense, the first confirmation hearing for one of President-elect Trump’s cabinet nominations in his second term. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/...
Jan 15, 2025•56 min
For today’s episode, Jennifer Gellie, the Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section ("CES") in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, sits down with Lawfare Senior Editor and General Counsel Scott R. Anderson and Lawfare Contributing Editor and Morrison Foerster partner Brandon Van Grack to discuss new proposed regulations her office has issued for implementing the Foreign Agents Registration Act ("FARA"). They cover how the role ...
Jan 14, 2025•1 hr 5 min
In a live conversation on January 10 , Lawfare Tarbell Fellow in Artificial Intelligence Kevin Frazier talked to Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein and Senior Staff Attorney at the Knight Institute Ramya Krishnan about the Supreme Court oral arguments over the legislation passed by Congress that bans TikTok unless its parent company ByteDance divests from the app, the arguments made by the different sides, and their predictions about how the Court might rule. To...
Jan 13, 2025•52 min
This episode of “Lawfare Live: Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” was recorded on January 10 in front of a live audience on YouTube and Zoom. Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower and Quinta Jurecic and Managing Editor Tyler McBrien about the sentencing of Donald Trump in the New York hush money case, what the prosecution, defense, and Justice Merchan said in court, and the litigation over the release of Special Counsel Ja...
Jan 12, 2025•1 hr 4 min
From May 12, 2023: Earlier this year, Brian Fishman published a fantastic paper with Brookings thinking through how technology platforms grapple with terrorism and extremism, and how any reform to Section 230 must allow those platforms space to continue doing that work. That’s the short description, but the paper is really about so much more—about how the work of content moderation actually takes place, how contemporary analyses of the harms of social media fail to address the histor...
Jan 11, 2025•1 hr 5 min
Melissa Stewart, an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa’s William S. Richardson School of Law, joins Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien to discuss the International Court of Justice’s forthcoming advisory opinion on obligations of states in respect of climate change. Stewart discusses how we got here, the unprecedented level of participation from states and international organizations in written submissions and oral proceedings, and the main arguments ...
Jan 10, 2025•47 min
