Today’s Headlines and Commentary

The Senate passed the defense authorization bill on Wednesday, sending the annual policy bill to President Biden’s desk, according to the Washington Post. The bill includes provisions to move prosecutions of sexual assault and related crimes of military personnel outside their chain of command, create an independent commission to examine the legacy and mistakes of the war in Afghanistan, and calls to study emerging threats from adversarial countries like Russia and China. While the bill received a large majority of the votes, the legislation has been criticized for its failure to repeal the 2002 Iraq War authorization and for removing a provision that would have required women to register with the Selective Service System.

The United Arab Emirates is suspending discussions with the United States over a $23 billion arms deal to purchase about 50 F-35A fighter jets, Reaper drones and other advanced munitions, writes the Wall Street Journal. The Emirati government told U.S. officials that it intended to stop the deal because the government believed the security requirements set forth by the United States to protect the weapons from Chinese espionage were too burdensome and would threaten the UAE’s national sovereignty. If the deal fails, it would strengthen perceptions in the Middle East and elsewhere that the United States’s decades-long role as the region’s security provider of choice is waning. The threat to cancel the contracts comes just two weeks after the UAE government agreed to buy military weaponry from France.

Karl Racine, the attorney general for the District of Columbia, filed a civil complaint against the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys for allegedly conspiring to terrorize the city with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, reports NPR. The suit accuses the groups of breaking the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which was passed to protect Black citizens from violence and intimidation. Civil lawsuits have already been filed against the two organizations as a result of the Jan. 6 riot—one by members of Congress and another by police officers. According to the complaint, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers began working “to plot, publicize, recruit for, and finance their planned attack” after former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

On Tuesday, the House passed legislation to prohibit imports from China’s Xinjiang region over concerns about forced labor and as pushback against the Chinese government’s treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority, according to Reuters. The bill passed by unanimous voice vote. The Chinese government continued to deny that it is carrying out genocide or committing human rights abuses in Xinjiang, a region that provides much of the world’s solar panel components.

John Eastman, the attorney who helped former President Donald Trump try to persuade then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 presidential election, on Tuesday sued Verizon and the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, says Business Insider. Eastman’s lawsuit alleges that the select committee improperly subpoenaed the network provider for his phone records. 

A court ruled on Wednesday that South Africa’s former President Jacob Zuma should return to prison to finish the rest of his 15-month sentence linked to his appearance before a corruption investigation, according to the New York Times. Zuma was released on medical parole within a month of his incarceration and was released after being in prison for just two months.

A longtime accountant for Trump, Donald Bender, of the firm Mazars, recently testified before a New York grand jury investigating Trump’s financial practices, reports the Washington Post. Additionally, prosecutors recently questioned Rosemary Vrablic, a former managing director at Deutsche Bank who allegedly secured hundreds of millions of dollars in loans for Trump. Bender and Vrablic’s appearances suggest that prosecutors are looking for evidence about Trump’s finances from a small group of outside partners who handled his taxes and real estate transactions.

New guidelines released Wednesday stipulate that all private-sector employees in New York City who have not applied for reasonable accommodations must produce proof of full vaccination or at least one dose to their employers beginning Dec. 27, writes NBC New York. This vaccine mandate is the strictest in the nation.

ICYMI: Yesterday on Lawfare

Jen Patja Howell shared an episode of the Lawfare Podcast in which Scott R. Anderson sat down with Caroline Rose to discuss the origins of Captagon, how it came to Syria, and how it is being used by the Assad regime, its allies and their proxies across the region.

Stewart Baker shared an episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast, featuring: Jamil Jaffer to talk about Google’s approach to suing cybercriminals; Maury Shenk to discuss the report that Apple CEO Tim Cook promised $275 billion of investment to China; Dave Aitel to discuss the security risks with Tor; along with a series of shorter updates.

Roger Parloff discussed the significance of ​​U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich’s ruling that a central felony charge in a large subset of the Jan. 6 cases had been properly invoked and was not unconstitutionally vague.

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