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The Lawfare Podcast: Stephanie Pell and Brian Kalt on How the Trump Indictment Will Affect the Trump Campaign and the Potential Trump Presidency

Jen Patja, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Stephanie Pell, Brian C. Kalt
Tuesday, June 20, 2023, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

Last November, President Trump became candidate Trump when he formally announced his campaign to retake the White House in 2024. And when, earlier this month, the Department of Justice indicted Trump over his unauthorized possession of classified documents, it gave him another title: defendant Trump.

How will all of these roles interact with each other on a legal and logistical level? How will the obligations of defendant Trump interfere with candidate Trump's ability to conduct his presidential campaign? And if candidate Trump becomes convicted-felon Trump and also President Trump, what then?

To think through these issues, Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Senior Editor at Lawfare, spoke with two members of the Lawfare extended universe: Stephanie Pell, Lawfare Senior Editor and a former federal prosecutor in the southern district of Florida, and Brian Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State and one of the foremost experts on presidential disqualification and removal.


Jen Patja is the editor and producer of The Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Alan Z. Rozenshtein is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, a senior editor at Lawfare, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he served as an Attorney Advisor with the Office of Law and Policy in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.
Stephanie Pell is a Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Editor at Lawfare. Prior to joining Brookings, she was an Associate Professor and Cyber Ethics Fellow at West Point’s Army Cyber Institute, with a joint appointment to the Department of English and Philosophy. Prior to joining West Point’s faculty, Stephanie served as a Majority Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee. She was also a federal prosecutor for over fourteen years, working as a Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General, as a Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division, and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.
Brian C. Kalt is professor of law and the Harold Norris Faculty Scholar at Michigan State University. He is the author of "Unable: The Law, Politics, and Limits of Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment."

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