The Week That Was: All of Lawfare in One Post

Jack Goldsmith argued that Insurrection Act reform is necessary in light of the conflict between the federal government and the state of Texas after Abbott’s recent defiance of federal authority and that such a reform would be in the bipartisan interest.

Steve Vladeck evaluated the two key elements of Texas’s interpretation of Article I, § 10, Clause 3 in Abbott’s federal constitution argument against the United States and addressed the consequences of such claims.

On the Lawfare Podcast, Benjamin Wittes, Roger Parloff, and Anna Bower discussed all of the Section 3 litigation occurring across the country and Parloff's recent article about whether the president is an officer of the United States. They talked about why we are still waiting on the D.C. Circuit to rule on Trump's presidential immunity claim and when the D.C. trial may actually start, what is going on in Fulton County, and more:

Also on the Lawfare Podcast, Parloff sat down with James A. Heilpern, who co-authored with Michael T. Worley a new article on Section 3 that has already been cited in several Supreme Court briefs, including the merits brief of the voter challengers in Trump v. Anderson. They discussed the disputed issue of whether Section 3 even applies to presidents, the use of corpus linguistics and other forms of legal research to look at how crucial phrases were when the original Constitution was ratified, and more:

On another episode of the Lawfare Podcast, Hyemin Han sat down with Sam Moyn and Ilya Somin to discuss the political arguments surrounding disqualifying former president Donald Trump under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. They went through the legal questions in front of the Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson, the political and philosophical implications of disqualifying Trump under Section 3, and the interplay of law and politics that overlays it all:

On the Lawfare Podcast, Wittes and Bower spoke with Dan Klaidman and Michael Isikoff about the new insights revealed in their book,“Find Me the Votes: A Hard-Charging Georgia Prosecutor, a Rogue President, and the Plot to Steal an American Election.” In a wide-ranging conversation, they discussed the Jan. 6 committee’s role in the Fulton County investigation, Sidney Powell’s request for preemptive pardons in the aftermath of the 2020 election, Rudy Giuliani's plan to access to voting systems in Georgia, and more:

On Lawfare Live, Wittes sat down with Bower and Quinta Jurecic and Parloff for this week’s episode of “Trump’s Trials and Tribulations.” If you couldn't attend the live event, the recording is available on Lawfare’s YouTube channel or on the Lawfare Podcast feed:

Scott R. Anderson and Matt Gluck outlined the legal and policy considerations that are likely to influence the U.S. response to the fatal attack on the Tower 22 military facility in Jordan. 

On the Lawfare Podcast, Anderson sat down with Brian Finucane, Jack Goldsmith and Gluck to talk about their recent pieces on the U.S. military operations against the Houthi rebels in Yemen and what it might mean for war powers, what we know and don’t know about the Biden administration’s legal theory for justifying this military campaign, and more:

Hyemin Han shared an executive order issued by the Biden administration allowing the U.S. to implement new measures given the escalating violence in the West Bank to address the regional instability in the Middle East.

Gluck and Maya Nicholson shared the letters authored by the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations Linda Thomas Greenfield to the president of the UN Security Council reporting the U.S. strikes against eastern Syria and Iraq in response to the ongoing attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

In this week’s Foreign Policy Essay, Emily Harding argued that the United States needs to adopt a more forceful approach to cyber attacks after two recent assaults by China and Iran. She underscored the threat that Tehran and Beijing pose despite the lack of response from the U.S., and recommended steps to establish a more solidified system of deterrence.

On Rational Security, Jurecic and Anderson were joined by Wittes to talk over the meaty week of national security news, including the drone attack by Iran-backed militias in Jordan, Gov. Gregg Abbott (R-Texas) opting to ignore a federal court ruling demanding that he take down barriers on the Rio Grande, on the basis of a highly dubious legal theory, and the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures in the genocide case against Israel over its Gaza operations.

Daphne Keller analyzed Texas and Florida’s Supreme Court briefs in the NetChoice cases, which argued that their social media laws prohibit discrimination as civil rights laws do by compelling platforms to enact similar “must-carry laws.” She found their arguments unconvincing.

Adam Chan explained the impact of TikTok’s win against a state-wide ban in Montana and why Judge Donald W. Molloy’s reasoning could be a setback for the platform if a federal ban were to arise in the future.

For Lawfare’s Security by Design project, Andrea Matwyshyn explained how the United States is stuck in a cybersecurity “bootloop,” and outlined how the creation of a regulatory Bureau of Technology Safety could address the issue. 

Vivek Chilukuri explained how the establishment of an Office of Technology Net Assessment could fill a “gap” in Washington that has led the United States to fall behind in technology competition.

Maia Hamin and Isabella Wright examined the Federal Acquisition Regulatory (FAR) Council’s two proposed cybersecurity rules imposing new requirements on cloud software systems that manage and process government data.

Emily O. Goldman reviewed Charles D. Freilich, Matthew S. Cohen, and Gabi Sabonoi’s book entitled “Israel and the Cyber Threat: How the Startup Nation Became a Global Cyber Power,” determining that it deserves a wide U.S. audience. Goldman found that the authors make a compelling case on their explanation of Israel’s cyber advancements but fall short on their cultural analysis and clarity of cyber deterrence.

In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren discussed why Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is targeting the NSA’s data purchase regime, how Microsoft’s Midnight Blizzard breach worsened this week, and the ongoing evolution of election disinformation.

Ben Farrer explained how Elinor Ostrom’s theory defining attention as a natural resource can help to strengthen democracy.

On the Lawfare Podcast, Brandon Van Grack and Anderson had a conversation with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) Director Andrea Gacki on the policymakers at the frontlines of national security and economic statecraft. They discussed FinCEN’s involvement in the historic Binance settlement, what new policies FinCEN is rolling out to tackle everything from beneficial ownership to residential real estate, and more:

Katherine Pompilio shared the House Committee on Homeland Security’s draft articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.

In the latest installment of Water Wars, Teresa Chen and Alana Nance discussed the Phillippines’s resistances of China’s territorial claims, Japan’s efforts to strengthen its security partnership, the escalation of Chinese military in the South China Sea, and more.

And on this week’s Chatter, David Priess sat down with Julia Irwin to discuss the academic study of disaster assistance, why some natural disasters stick in collective memory more than others, how U.S. aid for catastrophes started in 1812 in Venezuela, why U.S. disaster aid expanded in the late 1800s, and more.

And that was the week that was.