The Lawfare Podcast

This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by UVA Law Professor Paul Stephan to talk through the close-calls in this week’s national security news, including:“Xi’s All That.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing this past week, for a long delayed sit-down with President Xi Jinping to try and de-escalate the two superpowers’ tense relationship. Was this meeting a smart move or a giveaway? And what should we make of President Biden calling the Chinese leader a “dictator” shortly after Blinken’s return?“Adverse REPOssession.” The question of what to do with the $300 billion in Russia-related assets frozen by the United States and its allies has reemerged, with members of Congress recently introducing a new version of the REPO Act that would seize those assets and make them available as reparations for Ukraine, among other purposes. Is seizure the right way to handle these assets? What challenges and risks might such a dramatic step encounter?“Robo Joe.” President Biden joined a summit of leaders in the AI industry this week as part of his administration’s ongoing effort to seriously engage the policy challenges raised by AI technology. But what are the realistic prospects for regulation? And what form should it take?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From July 9, 2019: President Trump has declared that he will fight “all the subpoenas” coming from Congress and has claimed “absolute immunity” for White House advisors. In doing so, he has brought the issue of congressional oversight of the executive branch to the front pages. To talk about that very issue, Margaret Taylor sat down with Austin Evers, the executive director of American Oversight, a non-profit government accountability watchdog; and Michael Stern, who served for many years as the Senior Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives. Stern is the founder of the Point of Order blog, which covers legal issues affecting Congress. They talked about pending oversight litigation, the House of Representatives’ strategy, how the Trump administration is responding, and if any of this is normal.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As large language models like ChatGPT play an increasingly important role in our society, there will no doubt be examples of them causing harm. Lawsuits have already been filed in cases where LLMs have made false statements about individuals, but what about run-of-the-mill negligence cases? What happens when an LLM provides faulty medical advice or causes extreme emotional distress?A forthcoming symposium in the Journal of Free Speech Law tackles these questions, and Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Senior Editor at Lawfare, spoke with three of the symposium's contributors at the University of Arizona and the University of Florida: law professors Jane Bambauer and Derek Bambauer, and computer scientist Mihai Surdeanu. Jane's paper focuses on what it means for a LLM to breach its duty of care, and Derek and Mihai explore under what conditions the output of LLMs may be shielded from liability by that all-important Internet statute, Section 230.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since joining Lawfare in November 2021, Roger Parloff has been a constant presence at the January 6th trials. Now based in Washington, D.C, he had, earlier in his career, served as a staff writer for Fortune and American Lawyer Magazine, and has been published in The New York Times, Yahoo Finance, ProPublica, New York, NewYorker.com, and Air Mail News. As a senior editor at Lawfare, he's focused on January 6 related matters, including covering the more than 1,000 federal criminal cases that have been filed while also keeping up on the pending investigations of higher-ups.In his conversation with Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare’s editor in chief and this week’s Chatter guest host, Roger talks about giving live play-by-play of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers trials, the Venue Transfer Motions filed by many Jan. 6th defendants, the other journalists and "sedition hunters" who have been crucial in gathering information and reporting on the Jan. 6th cases, and more.Parloff’s latest essay on Lawfare on this subject is entitled: “Should Nine Oath Keepers Receive Terror-Enhanced Sentences?”Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the United Nations, Russia's obstruction of efforts to respond to its invasion of Ukraine is finally sparking serious interest in an issue that has long simmered in the background of global politics: reform of the UN Security Council to make it a larger and more inclusive body. In contrast to prior U.S. administrations, the Biden administration is at the tip of the spear of this effort and may be preparing to release a reform proposal of its own in the coming weeks.To better understand this forthcoming proposal and the context that has led to it, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Richard Gowan, an experienced UN watcher and current UN Director at the International Crisis Group. They discussed why the Ukraine conflict has sparked an interest in Security Council reform, what reform is likely to look like, and who stands to benefit the most.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carolyn Cole, a Pulitzer-Prize winning staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times, has covered wars and other conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kosovo, Liberia, Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti, and the U.S.-Mexico border. Over the course of her 30 year career, she has been seriously injured on the job precisely once—when members of the Minnesota State Patrol pushed Cole over a retaining wall and pepper sprayed her so badly that her eyes were swollen shut. Cole was in Minneapolis in the summer of 2020 to cover the protests after the murder of George Floyd. She was wearing a flak jacket marked TV, a helmet, and carried press credentials at the time of her attack. Cole’s story is not unique among the press corps. According to a new report out this week from the Knight First Amendment Institute called “Covering Democracy: Protests, the Police, and the Press,” in 2020, at least 129 journalists were arrested while covering social justice protests and more than 400 suffered physical attacks, 80 percent of them at the hands of law enforcement. As Joel Simon, author of the report and former Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, writes, “The presence of the media is essential to dissent; it is the oxygen that gives protests life. Media coverage is one of the primary mechanisms by which protesters’ grievances and demands reach the broader public.”Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Joel, as well as Katy Glenn Bass, the Research Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, to discuss the report, the long legacy of law enforcement attacks on journalists covering protests in America, who counts as “the press” in the eyes of the court, and what can be done to better ensure press freedom. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From April 19, 2019: A redacted version of the 448-page Mueller report dropped yesterday, and there’s a lot to say about it. In this Special Edition of the Lawfare Podcast, Bob Bauer, Susan Hennessey, Mary McCord, Paul Rosenzweig, Charlie Savage and Benjamin Wittes discuss what the report says about obstruction and collusion, Mueller’s legal theories and what this all means for the president and the presidency.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Rational Security, Alan, Quinta, and Scott were joined by Lawfare Legal Fellow Anna Bower fresh from the Miami court system to discuss the week's yuge national security news story—and one more for good measure:“Aileen, Aileen, Aileen, Aileen! Please don’t take this case just ‘cuz you can.” Former President Donald J. Trump was arraigned in federal court on Tuesday, the first step in a criminal trial expected to be overseen by none other than our old friend Judge Aileen Cannon. Will the charges for unlawful retention or obstruction of justice stick? And where is the trial likely to go from here?“It’s Arraignin’ Men.” The indictment of Trump in the Mar-a-Lago investigation is the first of its kind. But will it be the last? What else is the special counsel investigating? And are there other charges he might pursue, against Trump or others?“Xi Guevara.” Washington is up in arms over a spy station China is setting up in Cuba—or might have been operating for years. How big a deal is this? Are the reactions high-minded or hyperbole?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From April 28, 2018: On Thursday, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates hosted a conference at Georgetown Law on the future of American democracy. Matt Axelrod, Bob Bauer, John Bellinger, Jack Goldsmith, and Don Verrilli participated in a panel on the norms that govern contacts between the White House and the Justice Department, how the Trump administration has broken them, and what can be done to protect the Justice Department’s independence in this administration and future ones.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.