The Week that Was: All of Lawfare in One Post

Elliot Setzer shared a livestream of the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on political interference and threats to prosecutorial independence at the Department of Justice. The hearing centered on the department’s conduct during the prosecution of Roger Stone and the leadership of Attorney General William Barr. Four witnesses testified at the hearing. Setzer shared the written statements from two Justice Department lawyers, Aaron Zelinsky and John Elias; and Quinta Jurecic shared the statement from former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey also testified at the hearing but did not submit a written statement.

Jen Patja Howell shared an episode of Rational Security featuring a conversation with former Justice Department official Chuck Rosenberg about the politicization of the Department of Justice; the episode also covered planned Israeli annexation of settlements in the West Bank and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’s decision to order the judge in the Michael Flynn case to dismiss charges against President Trump’s former national security adviser:

Setzer shared the court of appeals’s decision.

Howell also shared a discussion on the Lawfare Podcast between Quinta Jurecic, Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith, and Marty Lederman covering the government’s legal arguments in its effort to obtain a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent the publication and distribution of John Bolton’s book. Jurecic shared Judge Royce Lamberth’s denial of the government’s motion for a TRO:

In light of the legal battle over Bolton’s memoir, Matthew Kahn discussed the laws and processes that govern classification.

Howell also shared an episode of the Lawfare Podcast's "Arbiters of Truth" series on disinformation, featuring a discussion with Whitney Phillips, professor of Communications and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University, and Ryan Milner, associate professor of Communication at the College of Charleston, about the troubling elements of our current information environment and how journalists contribute to it and might address it:

Megan McBride and Jessica Stern discussed online misinformation concerning the nationwide protests against racial injustice.

Howell also shared a discussion with Glenn Kessler, the head of the Fact Checker staff of the Washington Post, concerning the unique dishonesty of President Trump.

Stewart Baker shared an episode of the Cyberlaw Podcast featuring a conversation about the recent developments in the effort to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, European cyberlaw and the weaponization of LinkedIn, among other topics. Mark MacCarthy argued that passing legislation, not reforming Section 230, will be most productive in increasing transparency and accountability for online platforms:

Jacob Schulz analyzed France’s constitutional court’s rejection of much of a new law related to online hate speech and explained what was in the original legislation.

Hillary Hurd analyzed Senate Republicans’ assertion that U.S. sanctions law prevents Twitter from allowing Iranian officials to tweet.

Setzer shared a federal grand jury's new indictment against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. The indictment alleges that Assange worked with hackers in 2012 to breach classified information and expands already-existing charges against Assange.

Benjamin Wittes posed questions Congress should consider following President Trump’s removal of Geoffrey Berman as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Steve Vladeck and Bobby Chesney shared an episode of the National Security Law Podcast covering Juneteenth and the Emancipation Proclamation, the Supreme Court’s DACA ruling and the deployment of the National Guard in Washington D.C., among other topics:

Setzer also shared a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling, which determined that the Trump administration’s use of military funding to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border violated the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution and was therefore illegal.

Matt Gluck and Tia Sewell shared a Supreme Court ruling that upheld the expedited removal of undocumented immigrants. The Court decided that the denial of habeas corpus to non-citizens does not violate the Suspension Clause in Article I of the Constitution.

Stefan Soesanto argued that it would not be wise for the EU to implement sanctions against Russia for the hack of the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament.

Susan Landau announced the publication of her article analyzing the NSA’s Call Details Records (CDR) program in the Harvard National Security Journal.

Cameron Kerry and John Morris proposed a balanced approach to implementing private rights of action in privacy legislation.

Kerry also argued that privacy laws must address issues of discrimination and civil rights.

Nate Wood compared the current conversations about narrowing the role of the police to those concerning non-traditional military duties.

Paul Stern argued for enhancing police accountability through tort reform, rather than focusing exclusively on qualified immunity.

Lester Munson shared an episode of the Fault Lines podcast featuring his discussion with Dana Stroul, Jamil Jaffer and Harry Wingo about the national security community’s role in addressing racism and discrimination and whether the U.S. can use this moment to procure substantive institutional change:

Munson further explored race in national security in a conversation with Jamil Jaffer and Bishop Garrison, director of national security outreach at Human Rights First and co-founder and president of the Joseph Rainey Center for Public Policy. They considered the lack of diversity in the national security field, the U.S. military’s memorials to confederate officers, and much more:

Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware discussed how terror attacks have evolved over time and the challenges posed for counterterrorism as a result.

Elliot Setzer shared a livestream of the House Homeland Security Committee’s hearing on the Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

Matt Gluck and Tia Sewell posted a criminal complaint and indictment against a U.S. Army soldier who was allegedly involved in planning a terror attack against his own military unit.

Jen Patja Howell shared an episode of the Lawfare Podcast, in which Jordan Schneider sat down with Anthony Dapiran, about Hong Kong’s 2019 protests, the recent history of protests in Hong Kong and the relationship between demonstrations in Hong Kong and Black Lives Matter. Jordan Schneider shared the same episode on ChinaTalk:

Schneider also shared an episode of ChinaTalk about the border clashes between China and India:

Sean Quirk discussed developments in the U.S.-China military struggle in the Indo-Pacific region during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rachel Westrate evaluated what we have learned from the coronavirus about climate change.

Sean Mirski and Shira Anderson analyzed the substance of the coronavirus-related lawsuits brought in U.S. courts against China.

Setzer also shared a livestream of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing discussing the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act in relation to coronavirus-motivated lawsuits against China.

Setzer also posted a livestream of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s hearing on how the Trump administration has responded to COVID-19.

Jen Patja Howell shared an episode of the Lawfare Podcast featuring a conversation with Nate Persily, the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, and Lawfare’s Margaret Taylor about how to conduct a presidential election in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and what Congress can do to make the election run more smoothly:

And Matthew Aiesi and Amanda Minikus argued that the U.S. can fortify its deterrence signaling by using the jus ad bellum lexicon.

And that was the week that was.