The Lawfare Podcast

Senior Editor Roger Parloff joins Managing Editor Tyler McBrien for another quick update on the prosecution’s case in the Oath Keepers’ seditious conspiracy trial.

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Joe Sullivan, Uber's former chief security officer and a former federal prosecutor, was found guilty of obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony. These charges arose from what the Department of Justice characterized as Sullivan's attempted coverup of a 2016 hack of Uber. The Sullivan case has created some consternation in the cybersecurity community. Kellen Dwyer, partner at the law firm of Alston & Bird, argues in a recent Lawfare piece that the Sullivan prosecution threatens to undermine the positive working relationship between DOJ and the tech sector. 

Lawfare senior editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Kellen to talk about the Sullivan case. They discussed the specific charges for which Sullivan was convicted, how those charges blur the lines between covering up a data incident and merely declining to report it, and how in order to facilitate timely reporting of serious cybersecurity incidents to the FBI, the DOJ should clarify certain aspects of its charging policy to address concerns raised by the Sullivan case.

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On October 13, the Jan. 6 committee closed what may be its final public hearing with a dramatic vote: unanimously, the committee members agreed to subpoena former president Donald Trump. So … what happens now? Will Trump actually testify? What happens if he defies the committee—would the Justice Department prosecute him for contempt of Congress? 

To talk things through, Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic sat down with fellow senior editors Molly Reynolds and Jonathan Shaub and Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes. They discussed the historical precedent for current and former presidents testifying before Congress and debated the likelihood that Trump will take the plunge and show up before the committee. 

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Fulton County DA Fani Willis is closing in on Donald Trump's 2020 election meddling. She could begin issuing indictments as soon as December, CNN reports. In the meantime, she's gotten testimony from a long list of the former president's allies, and she's sought testimony from even more who are still resisting. All of this has America wondering: what the heck is a special purpose grand jury? Why can't it indict people? And what does it mean for Rudy Giuliani to be a target of a grand jury if it can't even issue any indictments? 

To talk it over, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare’s Fulton County court reporter Anna Bower, who wrote a Q&A piece entitled, “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Georgia Special Purpose Grand Juries But Were Afraid to Ask.” 

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Presidential transitions are the most delicate and hazardous periods in the entire political cycle. Even at the best of times, incoming administrations face a huge task. Each new president must make more than 4,000 political appointments in a short period of time, as well as get up to speed on ongoing policy issues.

To discuss the history and the current framework of presidential transitions, Lawfare publisher David Priess sat down with David Marchick, the dean of American University's Kogod School of Business and previously served as the director of the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service. He also is the author of, “The Peaceful Transfer of Power: An Oral History of America’s Presidential Transitions,” and the host of the Transition Lab podcast. They discussed examples of effective and ineffective recent transitions, the role of everyone from outgoing presidents to the GSA to agency teams, and what else might be done to nail down best practices for presidential transitions.

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This week on Rational Security, Alan Rozenshtein, Quinta Jurecic, and Scott R. Anderson were joined by beloved Lawfare contributor and UVA Law professor Ashley Deeks, fresh from her latest stint at the White House. They hashed through some of the week's big national security news, including:

• “The Bridge and Pummel Crowd.” Ukraine’s destruction of a symbolic bridge linking Russia to Crimea has observers worried about a new round of escalation, as Russia responded with missile strikes on a range of civilian targets across the country, including a German consulate in Kyiv, with promises of more to come. Are we entering a new, brutal phase of the conflict? What can be done to stop its civilian toll—or to keep the escalatory spiral from spinning out of control?
• “Finally, Some Decency and Moderation on the Supreme Court.” Last week, the Supreme Court took up not one but two—albeit, two closely related—cases that center on how to apply Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that provides internet companies with immunity for liability arising from user-generated content they host and protects their ability to moderate content. What might this judicial scrutiny mean for the future of content moderation on the internet?
• “1,001 Arabian Slights.” Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut oil production—a move expected to drive up oil prices and slow the global economy, to the benefit of Russia and other producers—has some members of Congress up in arms. This is especially true as it came on the end of a summer visit by President Biden that controversially seemed to signal a willingness to thaw relations with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which have grown icy since his involvement in the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. What do these steps mean for the future of the U.S.-Saudi relationship?

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From March 24, 2022: It's been a big week for the seditious conspiracy statute, which has long been on the books, quietly forbidding violent interference with the lawful functions of the United States government. But on 60 Minutes this weekend, the former chief prosecutor supervising the January 6 investigation hinted not too subtly that the seditious conspiracy statute might come out of obscurity and enter into action. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Jacob Schulz, Lawfare's deputy managing editor who has written a series of articles for Lawfare on recent deployments of the seditious conspiracy statute, to talk through the law's recent enforcement history.

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Senior Editor Roger Parloff joins Ben Wittes for another quick update on the prosecution’s case in the Oath Keepers’ seditious conspiracy trial.

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Thursday was the final day of hearings for the Jan. 6 select committee, and it turned out to be a bit of a barn burner, with a lot of new information about Donald Trump's state of mind, about the secret service, and about people with weapons threatening violence.

To chew it all over, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down on Twitter Spaces with Lawfare senior editors Quinta Jurecic, Alan Rozenshtein, and Molly Reynolds. They talked through what we learned on Thursday, what the subpoena of Donald Trump is going to mean, what the effects on the midterm elections are likely to be, and how the committee has done given the constraints it faced.

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The Supreme Court has granted cert in two cases exploring the interactions between anti-terrorism laws and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. To discuss the cases, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down on Arbiters of Truth, our occasional series on the online information ecosystem, with Lawfare senior editors and Rational Security co-hosts Quinta Jurecic, Alan Rozenshtein, and Scott R. Anderson. They discussed the state of 230 law, what the Supreme Court has taken on, what the lower court did, and if there is a right answer here and what it might look like.

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Foreign-imposed regime change is a policy tool that a number of countries—most frequently the United States—have used to establish friendly regimes and align interests in regions around the world. With the ongoing unrest in Iran and the war in Ukraine, foreign-imposed regime change is in the news once again.

But conversations around foreign-imposed regime change often occur without reference to the whole historical record. Hindsight might suggest that foreign-imposed regime change can be done but that it just needs to be done better, that we just need more resources or better strategy. 

To evaluate the efficacy of foreign-imposed regime change in a systematic way, Lawfare associate editor Hyemin Han spoke with Alexander Downes, professor of political science and international affairs at The George Washington University, who wrote a book about it called “Catastrophic Success: Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Goes Wrong.” With his data set, he draws out the lessons we can learn from attempts of foreign-imposed regime change over time. Ultimately, he argues that even when foreign-imposed regime change works, its successes don't last very long, and the downsides of regime change are actually built into the process of trying to achieve it in the first place.

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Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the illegal annexation of the Ukrainian region of Kherson, along with others. In the months leading up to the sham referendum that solidified the annexation, the Kremlin launched a forced assimilation campaign that targeted nearly every aspect of daily life in Kherson. Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Belén Carrasco Rodríguez and Tom Southern of the Centre for Information Resilience to talk through their research into the means used to establish and strengthen Russian occupational rule over the seized territories. They discussed this Russian playbook for control and the ways that forced assimilation may be working or not.

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From May 25, 2018: Vladimir Milov is the current economic advisor to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and the former deputy minister of energy in the Russian government. This week, Milov spoke to Alina Polyakova about the Russian economy, the recent Cabinet reshuffles in the Kremlin, and how local politics are back in Russia.Vladimir Milov is the current economic advisor to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and the former deputy minister of energy in the Russian government. This week, Milov spoke to Alina Polyakova about the Russian economy, the recent Cabinet reshuffles in the Kremlin, and how local politics are back in Russia.

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Darrell Blocker retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in 2018 after serving as an operations officer and manager in many countries, especially within Africa. His self-described lack of success recruiting assets during early assignments nevertheless taught him important lessons about the intelligence business, about how people work, and about himself; later tours of duty gave him the chance to make up for lost time by excelling at the job while also getting shot at and even gaining minor fame as the lead singer in an African jazz band. Blocker left CIA service as one of the most senior black officers in the Agency's history—and he was reportedly on President Biden's shortlist to become the director of the CIA. Now, he's involved in several creative projects in Hollywood.

On this episode of Chatter, David Priess chatted with Blocker about his career and his activities since retirement. They discussed getting spy stories told on film, growing up as an Air Force brat, understanding the Pledge of Allegiance, stumbling early in an intelligence career, appreciating the operational environment in Africa, growing from mistakes, accepting lessons from 360-degree feedback, performing on stage in a jazz band, singing the national anthem, being considered as a CIA director, enhancing the CIA's interactions with the media, learning about the benefits of fictional representations of Hollywood's take on intelligence, and more.

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

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From December 31, 2019: Iran is in turmoil. Protests erupted across the country last month, sparked by the government's decision to triple the price of gasoline. The Iranian government has responded with brute force, imposing a blackout of the internet and deploying security forces to crack down in the streets. The crackdown has left hundreds dead and thousands injured or detained. On December 18, the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution hosted a discussion on the unrest in Iran, what it means for the future of the country and the region, and how the United States and the international community should respond. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius led the conversation, which featured Brookings senior fellow Suzanne Maloney and film maker and journalist Maziar Bahari, who leads IranWire, a news site that conveys original information from Iran via citizen journalists.

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It's been a tumultuous few weeks in Iran with the death of a young woman at the hands of the morality police leading to street protests all over the country, calls for the death of the supreme leader, and widespread opposition to compulsory wearing of the hijab. To chew it all over and figure out where this is all going, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Suzanne Maloney, the vice president for Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution and a long-time Iran policy scholar. They talked about whether these protests are the latest round of something we've seen before or whether there's something different going on, about the regime's reaction and whether it's connected to unrest elsewhere in the world, about how the United States can constructively respond, and about where it is all going from here. Note: Wittes incorrectly states that Maloney is vice president of Brookings Governance instead of Foreign Policy Studies.

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Ben Wittes sits down for a quick update on the prosecution’s case in the Oath Keepers’ seditious conspiracy trial from Senior Editor Roger Parloff, who has been covering the trial for Lawfare.

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The United States is looking to curb China's advanced computing and chip production capabilities by using the so-called Foreign-Direct Product Rule to prevent companies globally from selling certain advanced computing chips to Chinese buyers without a U.S. government license. To understand the background, the details, and the implications of this, Lawfare publisher David Priess sat down with Martijn Rasser, senior fellow and director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Martijn also served as a senior intelligence officer and analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency and a senior adviser in the office of the Secretary of Defense. They talked about the nature of the semiconductor industry, what a Foreign-Direct Product Rule is and what it can do, whether the Commerce Department is well positioned to do what's proposed, the tension of working with allies versus going it alone, and the precedent of U.S.-led actions against Huawei.

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After months of mostly quiet, behind-the-scenes debate, both the House and Senate seem ready to move forward with reforming the Electoral Count Act, the 1887 statute governing how Congress counts electoral votes, whose various ambiguities played a central role in unsuccessful plans to turn the 2020 election results in favor of former President Trump. Experts are all but unanimous on the need to reform the law, and both proposals have at least some bipartisan support, including from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. But the path forward remains far from certain. 

To discuss what comes next, Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Ned Foley, a leading election law expert and professor at The Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law, and Genevieve Nadeau, a Counsel at the organization Protect Democracy who has been engaging on reform efforts. They discussed the similarities and differences between the House and Senate reform proposals, how they will strengthen our election process, and what work remains to be done. 

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Today, we’re bringing you another episode of our Arbiters of Truth series on the online information ecosystem. Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with Mark Bergen, a reporter for Bloomberg News and Businessweek, about his new book, “Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination.” YouTube is one of the largest and most influential social media platforms, but Bergen argues that it’s long been “criminally undercovered.” As he tells it, the story of YouTube has a great deal to tell us about the development of the modern attention economy, the promise and pitfalls of the internet, and the struggles of platforms to grapple with their own influence and responsibility. 

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There's been a lot going on in Russia: a partial mobilization, protests, a mysterious explosion underwater along the Nord Stream pipelines, and most recently, the annexation of seized Ukrainian territory in a bizarre ceremony in Moscow. To go over it all, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Julia Ioffe, currently of Puck, and Alexander Vindman, Lawfare’s Pritzker Military Fellow and a former Eastern Europe and Russia specialist for the NSC. They talked about the explosions along the Nord Stream pipelines, the protests, the annexations, and the threat of nuclear escalation.

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Every year, the eastern United States faces the prospect—and, too often, the reality—of major hurricanes that cause extensive physical and financial damage. This year is no exception; even as Hurricane Ian approaches the Gulf Coast, more storms are likely in the coming weeks.

On this episode of Chatter, David Priess chatted with author Eric Jay Dolin about the history of Atlantic hurricanes, with a special focus on such storms' influence on U.S. national security. They spoke about the devastating 2017 hurricane season, how tropical systems are covered in the media, Ben Franklin's role in hurricane science, the role of Caribbean hurricanes in the American Revolution and the Spanish-American War, the evolution of the federal government's storm forecasting and crisis response efforts, hurricane hunter flights, attempts to use technology to disrupt massive storms, Hurricane Andrew (1992), the effects of climate change on tropical systems and their impact, viewing hurricanes as national security threats, how humans assess risk, and films about hurricanes.

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

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From Monday, June 1, 2020: Journalist Bart Gellman is the author of the new book, "Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State." Jack Goldsmith sat down with Gellman to discuss the book. They spoke about Gellman's reporting on the Snowden affair, the scope of the National Security Agency's surveillance capabilities, and press freedom as it relates to national security reporting.

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In modern-day warfare, data is considered a weapons system, and the Russia-Ukraine armed conflict gives us some perspective into what warfare looks like in a data-rich, hyperconnected world. To talk about the pervasiveness of data in contemporary and future warfare, Lawfare senior editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Brigadier General Shane Reeves, the dean of the Academic Board at West Point, and Robert Lawless, assistant professor in the Department of Law at West Point, to discuss their new piece, “Data-Rich Battlefields and the Future LOAC,” or law of armed conflict. They talked about the growing importance for militaries to be able to exploit data on the battlefield, the deception arms race that is emerging in the modern battlefield, and some key ways in which data-rich battlefields are putting pressure on the law of armed conflict.

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This week marked the end of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, an annual event that brings world leaders together in New York and often serves as both a forum for and a barometer of international politics. This year's session was particularly notable, both because it was the first in-person session since the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic and because it was the first session since what many see as the greatest crisis in the United Nations history: Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

To learn more about what went down at the UNGA, Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Richard Gowan, the UN director for the International Crisis Group. They discussed how the Ukraine conflict shaped events at the session, how major powers like China and the United States responded, and what it might all mean for the future of both the conflict in Ukraine and the United Nations itself. 

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For much of its history, the United States has had a single law on the books that governs when the president can deploy the military to enforce federal law within the United States: the Insurrection Act. While the act hasn't been invoked in decades, it played an important role in several recent controversies, including the acts of Jan. 6. Now, some scholars have written the Jan. 6 commission, urging that it be included in the broader set of reforms that committee is reportedly getting ready to endorse. 

To learn more, Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with the two authors of the recent submission to the committee: Liza Goitein, senior director of the Liberty & National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, and her colleague Joseph Nunn, counsel at the same program. They discussed the history of the Insurrection Act, what they think makes it dangerous, and how Congress should try to fix it.

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In just under a week, on October 2, Brazil will hold the first round of its general election, which will determine the country's next president. To talk through all things Brazilian politics, Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and a journalist with over a decade of experience living and reporting across Latin America. They discussed the leading candidates, Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the potential election crisis, and what's at stake as Brazilians head to the polls on Sunday. 

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Stewart Rhodes, the chieftain of the Oath Keepers, goes on trial this week for seditious conspiracy. The trial is expected to run about five weeks, with jury selection sort of already underway. The opening of the trial gives us a great opportunity to catch up with Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff on the Oath Keepers, the chief defendant Stewart Rhodes, and the larger project of criminal accountability for the Jan. 6 riot and insurrection.

Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Roger to talk about the ever-mounting statistics of convictions and sentencing in Jan. 6-related matters. They talked about Stewart Rhodes: who he is and his weird journey from Yale Law School to conspiracy theorizing and violent uprisings. They talked about the specifics of the indictment. They talked about what makes Proud Boys different from Oath Keepers: who was the pointy end of the spear, and who was standing around waiting for the president to invoke the Insurrection Act? And they talked about the law under which this is taking place: the famed seditious conspiracy statute.

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This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott went guestless to discuss the week’s big national security news, including:

• “Ne Me Quitte Pas.” The nearby island nation of Haiti is hitting new levels of instability, as paired economic and political crises have given way to open gang warfare in broad swathes of the country. While the events have some calling for external intervention, others have expressed major reservations with such a step, given its past failings in the country. Where might this crisis lead?
• “I’m Rubber, You’re Su(ing).” Last week, the Fifth Circuit released a real barn-burner of an opinion in the matter of NetChoice v. Paxton, wherein it adopted a narrow reading of the First Amendment in order to resurrect a Texas law severely limiting how social media platforms can moderate content. What will this case mean for platforms moving forward?
• “Flying Worst Class.” Florida Governor Ron Desantis became the latest Republican governor this week to fly undocumented migrants to northern cities in purported protest of the Biden administration’s immigration policies. But his move has sparked unexpected furor among Florida’s Cuban and Venezuelan immigrant communities—as well as at least one criminal investigation. What was he thinking and where will this controversy go next?

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From July 15, 2020: We talk a lot about Chinese policy in Hong Kong, but there's another human rights crisis going on in China in the province of Xinjiang. It concerns the Turkic minority known as the Uighurs whom the Chinese government has been rounding up and putting in reeducation camps. It is an ugly story—one that the Chinese government has gone to great lengths to keep from international attention, with some degree of success. To walk us through the situation in Xinjiang, Benjamin Wittes spoke with Jessica Batke, a senior editor at ChinaFile; Darren Byler, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder whose research focuses on Uighur dispossession; and Maya Wang, a senior China researcher for Human Rights Watch, who has written extensively on the use of biometrics, artificial intelligence and big data in mass surveillance in China.

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Our Arbiters of Truth series on the online information ecosystem has been taking a bit of a hiatus—but we’re back! On today’s episode, we’re discussing the recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in NetChoice v. Paxton, upholding a Texas law that binds large social media platforms to certain transparency requirements and significantly limits their ability to moderate content. The decision is truly a wild ride—so unhinged that it’s difficult to figure out where First Amendment law in this area might go next.

To discuss, Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic sat down with fellow Lawfare senior editor Alan Rozenshtein and Alex Abdo, the litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University—who’s come on the podcast before to discuss the case. They tried to make sense of the Fifth Circuit’s ruling and chart out alternative possibilities for what good-faith jurisprudence on social media regulation might look like.

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There's enormous debate about how much social media platforms should be doing to moderate extremist content. But that debate often lacks nuance about the many different ways that platforms can moderate and that moderation is not an all or nothing proposition. 

Daniel Byman is a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and Lawfare’s foreign policy editor. He recently published a paper for Lawfare’s ongoing Digital Social Contract Research Paper series in which he lays out the many different ways that platforms can and do moderate content. Lawfare senior editor Alan Rozenshtein spoke with Dan about his research and how it can inform not just more but better moderation.

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This past Monday, the criminal trial of Thomas Barrack began in federal court in the Eastern District of New York. Barrack, who served as an informal advisor to the 2016 Trump campaign and then as chair of Trump's inaugural committee, is alleged to have acted as a foreign agent of the United Arab Emirates. According to the indictment, Barrack acted as a back channel for the UAE to influence U.S. foreign policy. 

Lawfare executive editor Natalie Orpett sat down with Alex Iftimie, a partner at the law firm Morrison Foerster, and a former Department of Justice attorney specializing in national security matters, including the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, and related statutes. They discussed the case against Barrack, the significance of the charges to broader enforcement strategy, and why foreign influence matters for U.S. national security. 

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Geoffrey Berman was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the Trump administration. He was appointed under peculiar circumstances, and he was fired under even more peculiar circumstances. He is now a partner at the law firm of Fried Frank, and he’s the author of the new book, “Holding the Line: Inside the Nation's Preeminent U.S. Attorney's Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department.” He joined Benjamin Wittes to discuss the book’s shocking revelations of political interference in the Southern District's work by Bill Barr, by Donald Trump, and by others in the Justice Department. They also talked about the pattern of political interference, the relationship between it and more famous cases, the efforts by senior Justice Department officials to shift gears after the 2020 election, and whether this is a story of fragility in the U.S. Attorney's office or strength. 

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On September 15, Judge Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida issued two key rulings in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. She appointed Judge Raymond Dearie of the Eastern District of New York as the special master reviewing the documents and denied the Justice Department’s motion for a partial stay of her previous injunction barring the department from using the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in its criminal investigation. The next day, Friday, September 16, the Justice Department appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit for a partial stay of the September 15 ruling.

Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic sat down for a live conversation on Twitter Spaces with Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes and senior editors Scott Anderson and Alan Rozenshtein to talk through Cannon’s latest ruling. They recorded before the Justice Department filed its appeal, but the conversation is a useful breakdown of Cannon’s somewhat off-the-wall orders. Namely: what, exactly, is this judge doing? And where is the case headed next?

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Of all of the Central Intelligence Agency's activities, paramilitary operations might remain the least understood. This, in part, is both a cause and a consequence of inaccurate portrayals of such work in prominent movies; it's also because fewer memoirs come from the CIA's Special Activities Division than from traditional human intelligence collectors and from analysts.

David Priess chatted with former CIA officer Ric Prado about the fiction and the reality of CIA paramilitary operations, including stories Ric tells in his book, “Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior.” They spoke about what Hollywood gets wrong about intelligence work, Ric's escape as a child from Castro's Cuba, his path to a CIA career, differences between paramilitary operations and intelligence collection, his years of work with the Contras in Central America, the Counterterrorist Center (CTC) at CIA before and on 9/11, the work ethic in CTC after 9/11, why his book has substantial chunks of redacted text, and who he thinks played the best James Bond.

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

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From March 17, 2018: In 1963, John Feerick became a witness to and a framer of our constitutional history. Within two years of graduating from law school, Feerick had written an influential law review article on presidential disability and succession, joined the ABA’s blue-ribbon commission to create a solution to those problems, and became a confidant and an adviser to the members of Congress who wrote the 25th amendment.

As many in the public wonder about the current president’s fitness, Matthew Kahn went up to Fordham Law School, where Feerick is now dean emeritus, for a conversation about the page of the constitution he helped write. They talked about how Dean Feerick got involved in the creation of the 25th amendment, how Congress settled on the scheme the amendment enshrines, where it still has gaps and ambiguity, and how political leadership and the public should understand it in modern times.

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Ken Starr, the former federal judge and independent counsel who became famous for his investigation of President Bill Clinton, died this week on September 13 at age 76. Starr was a complex and controversial figure: after running the Whitewater and Lewinsky investigations, he went on to serve as president of Baylor University, only to resign over the mishandling of a sex abuse scandal involving the university’s football team, and he would later go on to defend President Trump in Trump’s first impeachment.

To think through Starr’s legacy, Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes, who published a book on Starr, and Lawfare contributing editor Paul Rosenzweig, who worked with Starr on the Clinton investigation. They took a look back on the Starr investigation and how the probe shaped the culture and practice of presidential investigations in ways that are more relevant than ever in the Trump era.

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Dmitri Alperovitch is the founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a geopolitics think tank in Washington, and the impresario of the Geopolitics Decanted podcast. He joined Benjamin Wittes to talk through the Ukrainian offensive in Kharkiv Oblast last week. They discussed whether the Ukrainian retaking of large swaths of territory is a big deal, what’s going to come next, and if this is a prelude to a larger rout of Russian forces, to a negotiated settlement, or if something else is going to happen. They also talked about whether the Russians are running out of ammunition and people, or if the Ukrainian economy will collapse before victory.

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Amid the war and instability in Afghanistan over the last two decades, the opium industry has seen explosive growth. In fact, Afghanistan accounts for the vast majority of the world's opium supply. The Taliban vowed to crack down on the production of illicit drugs, and in March, they issued a total ban on opium cultivation, which has stripped many rural Afghans of their livelihoods. But in the meantime, drug prices have been increasing, making the production and trafficking of methamphetamines even more profitable. 

To discuss the situation, former Lawfare associate editor Tia Sewell sat down with Rupert Stone, an independent journalist who recently published a piece with the Atlantic Council entitled, “Afghanistan’s Drug Trade is Booming Under Taliban Rule.” They discussed how Afghanistan's drug trade has evolved under the Taliban, the growing problems of addiction, and how the Taliban's rule has affected the export and trafficking of illicit drugs in the broader region.

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Since his 1991 death, Rainer Sonntag has been remembered as a martyr by generations of neo-Nazis and other far-right activists, especially in his native Germany. Less discussed, however, is the fact that he was also a spy for the communist authorities of East Germany and their counterparts in the Soviet Union—and that a young KGB operative named Vladimir Putin played a prominent role in his rise to power. 

To learn more, Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Leigh Baldwin, the editor of SourceMaterial, and independent journalist Sean Williams, who co-authored a recent article on the relationship between Putin and Sonntag for The Atavist Magazine, entitled “Follow the Leader.” They discussed the relationship between communist intelligence agencies and far-right German movements, how those movements reacted to the reunification of Germany, and what Putin might have learned from his early dalliances with foreign far-right political movements. 

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Pakistan is experiencing one of the largest natural disasters in modern history. The massive floods there, combined with glacier melt, have led to one third of the country being submerged underwater with more than one million people displaced and tens of billions of dollars in damage.

Lawfare publisher David Priess sat down with Erin Sikorsky, the director for the Center for Climate and Security, who has over a decade of experience previously in the U.S. intelligence community looking at issues like climate and security. They talked about the situation in Pakistan, its impact on the Pakistani military and security services, how the Pakistani military is being employed to help with flood relief, the impact on regional security and the ultimate impact on U.S. national security, and how we address climate change.

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From January 25, 2022: In this bonus episode of Chatter, David Priess talks with professor and author Marita Sturken about 9/11-related memorials, museums, and architecture. Her research and writings have examined everything from visual culture to the connection between memory and consumerism, with much of her recent work addressing memory of the attacks on September 11, 2001, as both the battleground and the site for negotiations of national identity.

In this conversation, they talked briefly about various historical memorials and the purposes of such work before comparing and contrasting the 9/11 memorials around the country and those at Ground Zero, next to the Pentagon, and in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. They also discussed controversies surrounding the National September 11 Memorial Museum (commonly called the "9/11 museum"), including those about its gift shop and about human remains currently in the facility.

Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo.

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This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by co-host emeriti Ben Wittes and Shane Harris for a very special anniversary edition of Rational Security that pits their national security hot takes up against each other.

Which of the following takes will the team find to be "too hot," which "undercooked," and which "just right"?

• Americans (and especially progressives) will regret reviving the prospect of disqualifying people under section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
• Over the next year, there will be a windfall of information regarding unidentified aerial phenomena, including some pointing to possible extraterrestrial origin.
• A President Ron Desantis won't be as dangerous as President Donald Trump.
• Russia's terminal decline presents one of the greatest threats to global security.
• American democracy will be saved by social conservative minorities voting for the Republican Party. 

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From September 3, 2020: This week on Lawfare's Arbiters of Truth series on disinformation, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Alissa Starzak, the head of public policy at Cloudflare—a company that provides key components of the infrastructure that helps websites stay online. They talked about two high-profile incidents in which Cloudflare decided to pull its services from websites publishing or hosting extremist, violent content. In August 2017, after the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince announced that he would no longer be providing service to the Neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer. Two years later, Cloudflare also pulled service from the forum 8chan after the forum was linked to a string of violent attacks.

They talked about what Cloudflare actually does and why blocking a website from using its services has such a big effect. They also discussed how Cloudflare—which isn’t a social media platform like Facebook or Twitter—thinks about its role in deciding what content should and shouldn’t stay up.

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On August 25, the Defense Department released its long-awaited Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan, something that human rights advocates have called on the Pentagon to do for the past 20 years. To discuss it, former Lawfare associate editor Tia Sewell sat down with Todd Huntley, a former JAG and current director of the National Security Law Program at Georgetown University Law Center, as well as Marc Garlasco, a former targeting professional and war crimes investigator who consulted on the plan. They talked about Todd’s and Marc’s respective Lawfare articles on the topic and how this new action plan improves the Pentagon's handling of civilian harm in war or not.

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On August 23, the Washington Post published a story about a whistleblower complaint filed by Peiter Zatko, the former security lead and member of Twitter's executive team responsible for information security, privacy, physical security, and information technology. In the whistleblower complaint, Zatko describes extreme problems and deficiencies with the security, privacy, and integrity of Twitter's platform. The complaint also alleges that since 2011, Twitter's senior executives have engaged in making false and misleading statements to users and the Federal Trade Commission about Twitter's privacy, security, and integrity.

Lawfare senior editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Justin Sherman, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, to discuss some of the most interesting aspects of the complaint. They talked about some of the background leading up to the filing of the complaint, some of its most significant alleged privacy and security violations, and what to look for in the upcoming congressional hearing on the complaint.

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Monday afternoon, a federal judge in Florida acceded to Donald Trump's motion to appoint a special master to review privilege claims arising out of the Mar-a-Lago search. The ruling was not a particular surprise given that the judge had foreshadowed that it was coming, but it shocked observers nonetheless on a number of different bases. The decision raised questions of how it would affect the Justice Department's ongoing investigation of document retention at Mar-a-Lago. Would the department appeal, would it seek a stay, and who could possibly serve as special master for such a task?

Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down before a live audience on Twitter Spaces with Lawfare executive editor Natalie Orpett, Lawfare contributing editor Jonathan Shaub, and Lawfare student contributor Anna Bower, who attended the hearing. They talked about whether the opinion is quite as outlandish as many commentators seem to think, about how the Justice Department would likely respond, and whether it could just let it stand. They also nominated their picks for special master and took questions from the audience. 

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Late last month, investigative journalists at Bellingcat and partner organizations published a story exposing the identity of a Russian spy named Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, who over the course of 10 years had charmed her way into the social circles of NATO members in Naples. Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Christo Grozev, Bellingcat's lead Russia investigator, who walked us through this stranger-than-fiction spy thriller. They discussed how Maria Adela found herself courting NATO officers in Italy, how Bellingcat's team exposed the truth, often at great personal risk to themselves, and how this story can help us understand the state of Russian tradecraft. 

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Oleksandra Povoroznik is a (⁦@rynkrynk) is a Kyiv-based journalist, film critic and translator, who joins us to discuss the changing politics of language in Ukraine, as well as the country's defiant wartime culture and humor.

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