The Week That Was

Anna Bower and Benjamin Wittes discussed Lawfare’s investigation into David Clements, a prominent election denier conducting a cross-country campaign that trains citizens to pressure election officials—with the aim of preventing certification of election results. Bower reflected on her experience attending one of his events in Georgia, and Wittes shared his impressions from interviewing Clements personally.

On Lawfare Daily, Roger Parloff sat down with Bower and Wittes to further discuss their investigation into Clements. Bower expanded on the training she attended, Wittes shed more light on his two-hour interview with Clements, and more. 

Quinta Jurecic and Adam George discussed the current state of affairs in fake electors cases prosecuted across multiple states—Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, and Wisconsin—and what to expect in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election.

On Lawfare Daily, Parloff sat down with Nick Quested, the director of “64 Days: The Insurrection Playbook," a recent film about the 64 days leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. The pair discussed Quested’s interviews with Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, the testimony he gave to the Jan. 6 Committee and at the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy trial, the difficulties he faced in distributing the film, and more.

Dave Rapallo argued that—in the wake of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision in Trump v. United States—Congress’s power to investigate alleged criminal conduct is one of the only remaining institutional checks on presidents who commit crimes.

Jacob S. Hacker reviewed “The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism” by David Wolf. Hacker lauded Wolf’s argument that economic inequality and “rentier capitalism” are central to a distinctly American right-wing “plutopopulism,” but stipulated that Wolf’s prescriptions—while well-informed—fall short of addressing the full scope of the issue.

On Oct. 29 at 1 pm ET, Wittes moderated a panel discussion featuring Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson; Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution Elaine Kamarck; Visiting Fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings Katie Tenpas; and Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett. The panel discussed what occurs during a presidential transition, how each candidate is currently preparing for the transition, what went wrong in 2020, and how this year may be different. 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 livestream is available on Lawfare’s YouTube channel.

Jurecic and Eugenia Lostri examined how federal agencies have shifted to an aggressive—but limited—approach to combating election misinformation and foreign interference, focusing on curbing foreign disinformation while scaling back efforts to counter domestic falsehoods due to political pressures. 

On Lawfare Daily, Jurecic and Lostri sat down with Cait Conley to talk about how the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is working to secure the 2024 election, including ensuring the physical security of election workers, protecting election systems from cyber threats, identifying foreign influence campaigns, preparing for the use of deepfakes, and more.

In the latest installment of Lawfare’s Digital Social Contract paper series, David Kris proposed a solution to address the disclosure risks that companies face when adopting cloud storage. Kris suggested the appointment of a contractually authorized individual, or "data proxy," who would represent company interests when it is unable to represent itself due to a nondisclosure order.

On Lawfare Daily, Alan Z. Rozenshtein discussed the new paper with Kris, including how law enforcement can compel cloud service providers to turn over customer data while legally prohibiting them from notifying the customer, how data proxies could solve this problem, the viability of data proxies, and more.

Nick Caputo argued that frontier artificial intelligence (AI) labs must adapt and model their internal structures on independent federal agencies such that, in the case of divergence between the good-of-all and profit-motivated functions, the former outcome is protected.

Charlie Trumbull examined the UN secretary-general’s July report that “call[ed] for the conclusion, by 2026, of a legally binding instrument to prohibit lethal autonomous weapons systems[...].” Trumbull considered the challenges and opportunities that negotiating this instrument would present, including prohibitions on a category of autonomous weapon, affirmative obligations, due diligence requirements, and more.

On Lawfare Daily, Kevin Frazier sat down with Aram A. Gavoor to summarize and analyze the first-ever national security memo on AI. The two discussed the memo’s proposals of structural changes and streamlined procurement, what this memo means for AI policy going forward given the impending election, and more.

Elise Thomas discussed generative AI’s potential to increase uncertainty surrounding disinformation campaigns, leading to misinformation. Thomas analyzed this phenomenon in the wake of a recent incident in which dozens of bots on X (formerly Twitter) appeared to spam tweets in support of an Australian senator facing controversy—prompting unfounded speculation about “foreign interference.”

Jordan Allen, Brad Carney, and Simon Oberschmied examined Abu Ghraib detainees’ efforts to sue CACI Premier Technology, Inc. (CACI)—a contractor that provided interrogation services to the U.S. military at the prison. Allen, Carney, and Oberschmied broke down the origins of the case, the twists and turns that the litigation has taken so far, and the lead-up to the retrial.

In this week’s installment of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Matthew Levitt—drawing lessons from Israel’s “lackluster performance” in its last war with Hezbollah in 2006—considered how Israel should approach its current military campaign in Lebanon.

On Rational Security, Anderson sat down with Wittes, Rozenshtein, and Molly Reynolds to talk through the week’s big national security news, including Israeli missile strikes on Iran, Elon Musk’s and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s undisclosed communications, Jeff Bezos’ crackdown on a potential endorsement of Kamala Harris by the Washington Post editorial board, and more.

On Chatter, David Priess sat down with Mark Pomar to talk about the origins of U.S. government-funded international broadcasting, the impacts of détente as well as Reagan's more hawkish approach, KGB infiltrations, changes to radio technology toward the end of the Cold War, the failed coup against Gorbachev, Mark's book “Cold War Radio,” and more.

Rozenshtein and Wittes announced the launch of the Lawfare Research Initiative, formalizing and expanding Lawfare’s long-form research across law, national security, foreign policy, and technology. 

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.