The Week That Was: All of Lawfare in One Post
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes examined the special counsel’s brief responding to former President Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss his Jan. 6 case in D.C. District Court.
Roger Parloff discussed appellate court decisions in U.S. v. Thomas Robertson and U.S. v. Fischer endorsing the Justice Department's usage of 18 U.S.C. §1512(c)(2) to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters.
On the Lawfare Podcast, Matt Gluck sat down with Parloff to discuss the appellate court decisions in U.S. v. Thomas Robertson and U.S. v. Fischer and what it would mean for the Justice Department if its interpretation of the statute is ultimately rejected:
Gluck shared Trump’s motion to dismiss the special counsel’s Jan. 6 case on constitutional grounds.
Caleb Benjamin shared Trump’s motion to dismiss the Jan. 6 case on statutory grounds.
Katherine Pompilio shared Trump’s motion to dismiss the Jan. 6 case on the basis of “selective and vindictive prosecution.”
Tyler McBrien shared Trump’s reply brief in support of his motion to dismiss the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 case against him.
Hyemin Han provided a dispatch in absentia of Waltine Nauta’s Oct. 20 Garcia hearing in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. The hearing occurred eight days after Nauta’s first Garcia hearing imploded.
On this week’s episode of “Lawfare Live: Trump’s Trials and Tribulations,” Wittes sat down with Anna Bower, Jurecic, and Parloff to discuss Trump’s motions to dismiss the D.C. District Court case, Judge Tanya Chutkan’s administrative stay on the gag order on Trump in D.C., the fine levied against Trump for violating the gag order in the New York civil case, and more:
On the Lawfare Podcast, Wittes sat down with Bower to discuss former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis’s plea deal, how big a deal Ellis could be for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s case, who might plead next, and more:
On Lawfare No Bull, Benjamin shared edited audio of the Oct. 24 hearing in which Ellis pleaded guilty to one felony count in the Fulton County case. Ellis will serve five years of probation and agreed to testify against other defendants in the case:
Anna Hickey shared an unofficial AI-generated transcript of Ellis’s plea hearing.
On Lawfare No Bull, Benjamin shared edited audio of an Oct. 20 hearing in which Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect of the “fake electors scheme,” pleaded guilty to one felony count in the Fulton County case. Chesebro will serve five years of probation and agreed to testify against other defendants in the case:
On the Lawfare Podcast, Wittes sat down with Bower, Han, Jurecic, and Parloff to discuss Sidney Powell’s guilty plea, a gag order on Trump in D.C. District Court, a couple of hectic hearings in D.C. and Florida, and more:
Hickey shared that Lawfare has a new page to track all Trump's ongoing criminal trials. The page compiles all Lawfare analysis and coverage of the trials and can be found here.
Pompilio and Wittes discussed the responses of governments, government officials, and international organizations to the explosion at Al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza last week.
Daniel Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack discussed the increasingly close ties between Iran and Russia and how Russian support has emboldened Iran in the Middle East.
Nikola R. Hajdin argued that acts of aggression that follow an initial manifest aggression should also warrant prosecution, using Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a model case.
Jack Goldsmith discussed the executive branch’s broad view of the president’s Article II self-defense powers and its implications for U.S. military involvement in the Middle East.
Patrick Hulme discussed the 1962 “Cuba Resolution” and argued Congress exerted far more influence over the Cuban Missile Crisis than is traditionally believed.
In the latest installment of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Jake Barnes, Zachary Griffiths, Scott Limbocker, and Lee Robinson examined Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) hold on U.S. military promotions in the context of the overall military promotion process, arguing that the entire process is needlessly politicized and should be reformed.
On the Lawfare Podcast, McBrien sat down with Akbar Shahid Ahmed and Robbie Gramer to discuss the nearly broken Senate political appointee confirmation process, the fallout from a high-level diplomatic resignation, the potential “mutiny brewing” inside the State Department, and more:
Gluck reviewed John Mearsheimer and Sebastian Rosato’s book, “How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy,” focusing on the book’s theoretical relevance and empirical methodology.
On Rational Security, Scott R. Anderson, Jurecic, and Alan Rozenshtein sat down to discuss the increasing criticism of the Biden administration regarding its handling of the Israel-Hamas war, guilty pleas in the Fulton County case, the future of U.S. participation in NATO, and more:
In the latest installment of Water Wars, Teresa Chen and Alana Nance discussed a string of recent incidents in the South China Sea, the Biden Administration’s Indo-Pacific diplomatic initiatives, Taiwan’s unveiling of its first domestically made submarine, and more.
In the latest installment of Lawfare and the Hoover Institution’s “AEGIS: Security Policy in Depth” series, Tara Davenport examined the law of the sea and the law on the use of force to determine how they apply to damage caused by states to submarine cables in peacetime.
Matt Perault and Andrew K. Woods argued against taking absolutist positions on privacy law and for analyzing trade-offs of costs and benefits when considering privacy legislation.
On the Lawfare Podcast, Eugenia Lostri sat down with Arianna Evers and Itsiq Benizri to discuss the approaches to AI regulation in the U.S. and the EU, the similarities and differences across jurisdictions, and how they help their clients navigate AI-related challenges:
On the Lawfare Podcast, Lostri sat down with Tilman Rodenhäuser and Mauro Vignati to discuss the behavior of civilian hackers during war time, what could happen if the principle of distinction is eroded and civilians lose their status, what limits governments should impose on civilian hackers conducting cyber operations during armed conflict, and more:
On Chatter, David Priess sat down with Steve Inskeep to discuss his new book “Differ We Must: How Lincoln Succeeded in a Divided America,” what drew him to Lincoln as a subject, the challenges of recreating private exchanges from long ago, and more:
And Han and Pompilio shared that Lawfare is now accepting Spring 2024 internship applications. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis. The application period closes on Nov. 5, 2023.
And that was the week that was.