The Lawfare Podcast: Checking In on Congress

If you’ve been following the news out of Congress recently, you’ve probably been focusing on the narrowly averted government shutdown and the indictment of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez—and, perhaps, the House Republicans’ decision to begin an impeachment inquiry against President Biden. But there have also been some notable updates when it comes to the continuing fallout from Jan. 6. Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unsealed an opinion limiting the ability of the special counsel’s office to access phone records from Rep. Scott Perry under the Speech and Debate Clause. Meanwhile, Trump’s onetime advisor Peter Navarro was finally convicted of contempt of Congress for defying the Jan. 6 committee. 

Lawfare Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic and Molly Reynolds sat down with two of our favorite guests to call when there’s news about Congress and the law: Mike Stern, former Senior Counsel to the House of Representatives, and Eric Columbus, who recently served as Special Litigation Counsel in the House Office of General Counsel. They discussed Perry, Navarro, how exactly one should define an impeachment inquiry, and, of course, the Menendez indictment.