The Week That Was

Clara Broekaert and Colin P. Clarke analyzed the latest incident of political violence aimed at Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio and how it epitomizes a trend of wider contemporary political violence in the United States, suggesting that similar future incidents seem likely.

In this week’s installment of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Jacob Ware discussed the recent assassination attempts against Trump, and how they are part of a larger trend of election-based political violence in the United States.

Anna Bower examined the recent rule changes to elections in Georgia and determined that the new rules almost certainly do not give former President Donald Trump and his allies a legal avenue to overturn the results of the 2024 election.

On Sept. 24 at 1:30 p.m. ET, Benjamin Wittes moderated a panel discussion featuring Scott R. Anderson, Molly Reynolds, Quinta Jurecic, and Nate Persily on how Congress has prepared for the 2024 election, including the passage of the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, how the government and social media companies are addressing election-related disinformation, how states have used the lessons of 2020 to prepare for the 2024 election, and more. Lawfare material supporters on Patreon and Substack received a Zoom invitation to join the conversation live and had the opportunity to submit questions for the panelists in advance. Become a Lawfare material supporter here. A recording of the event can be found here.

Katherine Pompilio shared the unsealed federal indictment of three members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in connection with their alleged hack of the Trump campaign.

On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Anderson and Daniel Byman to talk over the latest developments between Israel and Hezbollah, including Israel’s escalation along its northern border, targeting major Hezbollah figures, blowing up pagers used by thousands of Hezbollah operatives, and recent strikes across southern Lebanon.

John Chappell examined why attempts to enforce legal restrictions on arms transfers and security assistance in U.S. courts have usually failed, including the U.S. government’s 2017 sale of 12 Super Tucano aircraft to the Nigerian government, an Emirati airstrike on a refugee center in Libya using a U.S.-origin warplane, U.S. military aid to Israel, and more.
Yumna Rizvi and Sarah Yager discussed the United States’s long-standing counterterrorism policy, arguing that the U.S. cannot promote democracy and human rights abroad so long as it remains a model for a militarized counterterrorism-based foreign policy.

On Lawfare Daily, Preston Marquis sat down with Steve Coll to discuss Coll’s latest book, “The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq,” which explores why Hussein would put his regime at risk over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, his secret tapes and archives, twists and turns in the U.S.-Iraq bilateral relationship dating back to the Cold War, and more. Marquis’s previous review of Coll’s book can be found here.

On Rational Security, Anderson was joined by Natalie Orpett, Bower, and Matt Gluck to talk over some of the week's big national security news, including President Joe Biden’s fourth and final speech as president to the U.N. General Assembly, controversial rule changes by the Georgia state election board, the New York Times publishing memos prepared by then-President Trump’s White House Counsel regarding his ability to direct the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute individuals, and more.

Jurecic and Reynolds examined the politics surrounding Republican efforts to impeach President Biden and the possible implications of the attempt, detailing the contents of the report and its reliance on precedent over substance, the successful impeachment of Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, effects on the future of civil enforcement of judicial subpoenas, and more.

Jack Goldsmith, in a Constitution Day speech at the University of Michigan Law School, considered the implications of the recent landmark presidential immunity ruling in Trump v. United States. Goldsmith discussed the ideas of a “bad-man” presidency, a legal “golden shield”, and how the opportunities for abuse of the presidential powers afforded by the Constitution may be fewer than many fear.

On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Lindsay Chervinsky to talk about her new book on the John Adams presidency, “Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic,” which is primarily focused on the national security decision-making of the second president. They discussed how Adams defended presidential power while it was under assault by both his Jeffersonian foes and the radicals of his own Federalist party, how Adams’s presidency set the norms for the conduct of the modern presidency and its powers, and more.

In the latest installment of a series from Protect Democracy and Lawfare on the limitations, drawbacks, and dangers of domestic deployment, Elaine McCusker discussed the potential consequences of using the armed forces—and the resources that support them—to conduct missions that may be more appropriately tasked to domestic agencies.

In the latest installment of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren considered questions of whether Chinese state-sponsored hacker group Volt Typhoon could be stopped in the case of U.S. military conflict with China, the retreat of Elon Musk’s X from its dispute with the Supreme Court of Brazil, the turnaround of Microsoft’s Secure Future Initiative, and more.

On Lawfare Daily, Kevin Frazier sat down with Itsiq Benizri to review the shocking and significant resignation of former European Commissioner Thierry Breton. Frazier and Benizri discussed Breton’s background, his role in shaping and enforcing the EU’s digital regulations, his tensions with both Ursula von der Leyen and Elon Musk, and more.

Also on Lawfare Daily, Frazier sat down with Geoff Schaefer and Alyssa Lefaivre Škopac to discuss how governments, corporations, and nonprofits can integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into their operations in an ethical and responsible fashion, jumpstarting AI governance within any institution, and more.

Matt Perault and Andrew K. Woods discussed recent research on human bias against AI, and suggested that countering this “robophobia” with evidence-based policymaking may lead to a more grounded understanding and regulation of AI.

On Sept. 27, Lawfare and the Institute of Technology, Law, and Policy at Georgetown Law hosted a conference on the landscape of AI liability. “AI on Trial: Liability in the AI Ecosystem,” which brought together a diverse group of leading experts to discuss potential legal frameworks and challenges in holding AI creators, deployers, and users accountable for harms caused by AI systems. The conference unveiled and examined a series of legal primers, which were published on Lawfare, addressing various aspects of AI liability.

In the first installment of the new series from Lawfare and the Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy entitled “AI on Trial: Liability in the AI Ecosystem,” Katrina Geddes, discussed the intellectual property issues surrounding AI-generated content and how courts are beginning to untangle them.

In the second installment in the AI liability series, Chinmayi Sharma and Alan Rozenshtein discussed possible challenges and strategies federal agencies may consider when dealing with the implications of AI liability.

In the third installment in the AI liability series, Catherine M. Sharkey examined how products liability law can be adapted to address emerging risks in AI.

In the fourth installment in the AI liability series, Bryan H. Choi examined how negligence liability law may be necessary to address emerging risks in AI, because it directs legal scrutiny towards those actually responsible for creating and managing AI systems.

In the fifth installment in the AI liability series, Eugene Volokh examined how First Amendment protections apply to AI-generated content, finding that AI output enjoys some, but not absolute, protection.

On Chatter, Shane Harris sat down with Adam Higginbotham to talk about Higginbotham’s new book, “Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space,” exploring what went wrong, and how NASA failed to learn from its mistakes. Harris and Higginbotham discussed the earlier fire in the capsule of the Apollo 1 mission, the early days of the space shuttle program, the disastrous but preventable tragedy, and more.

Pompilio shared an indictment unsealed by the Justice Department of New York Mayor Eric Adams, accused of soliciting contributions by foreign nationals, wire fraud, bribery, and more.

And to support Lawfare’s coverage of the Trump Trials—a first-of-its-kind project dedicated to providing in-depth coverage of the ongoing criminal proceedings against Trump in Washington, Florida, New York, and Georgia—please consider making a contribution here. Lawfare’s talented correspondents and analysts discuss the latest developments in the cases, explain the complex legal issues they raise, and consider what might come next in a wide range of content, including written analysis, podcasts, live and recorded virtual events, primary source document repositories, and infographics.

And that was the week that was.