The Lawfare Podcast

Earlier this month, the Fulton County special grand jury investigating potential criminal interference into Georgia's 2020 elections subpoenaed members of former President Donald Trump's inner circle, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Senator Lindsay Graham, among others.To discuss these high profile subpoenas and some of the finer points of Georgia state criminal procedure, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Tamar Hallerman, reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who is covering the Fulton County Trump probe, and who also formally served as the papers Washington correspondent covering the Trump administration. Tamar also hosts a weekly podcast on the special grand jury called The Breakdown.They discussed the scope of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's criminal probe, how a special grand jury operates in the state of Georgia, what this one has been up to, and what's next for the investigation. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

#LiveFromUkraine is an experimental project hosted on Twitter Spaces by Ben Wittes, with the goal of interviewing a diverse lineup of guests to educate and engage directly with people on the ground in Ukraine during Russia's ongoing invasion. In this episode, Ben talks with Katya Savchencko (@shanovna_s), who grew up in the Donbas region of Ukraine and moved to Bucha following the Russian invasion of that region in 2014. This year, following the full-scale invasion, she survived several days of the brutal and murderous Russian occupation of Bucha before escaping by train with her sister. She kept a diary of her days in Bucha, which she recently published on Medium in English translation. Savchhencko joined Benjamin Wittes on #LiveFromUkraine. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From April 9, 2019: On this episode of the Lawfare Podcast, our friends at the National Security Institute at George Mason University came over to have a discussion in our podcast studio about Yemen and the U.S.-Saudi alliance. Four former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers who worked with and sometimes at odds with each other participated. The conversation was moderated by Lester Munson, former Staff Director of the Committee under Chairman Bob Corker, and it included Jodi Herman, former Staff Director of the Committee under Ranking Member Ben Cardin; Jamil Jaffer, Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute and former Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor with the Committee under Chairman Bob Corker; and Dana Stroul, former Democratic senior staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for the Middle East.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Global crises of the last 20 years have led to a backlash against elites of all kinds, but those same crises often lay bare just how much power they still have, especially informed policy. Former Lawfare Associate Editor Bryce Klehm sat down with Elizabeth Saunders, an associate professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, to talk about her recent article in the Annual Review of Political Science: "Elites in the Making and Breaking of Foreign Policy."They discussed questions like who exactly are foreign policy elites, why they behave the way they do, and what, if anything, is the alternative to concentrating power in the hands of an elite few? Bryce and Elizabeth also got into why, when it comes to foreign policy elites, we can't live with 'em and we can't live without 'em.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we’ve talked a lot on this show about how falsehoods about the coronavirus are spread and generated. For this episode, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with two emergency medicine physicians who have seen the practical effects of those falsehoods while treating patients over the last two years. Nick Sawyer and Taylor Nichols are two of the cofounders of the organization No License for Disinformation, a group that advocates for medical authorities to take disciplinary action against doctors spreading misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19. They argue that state medical boards, which grant physicians the licenses that authorize them to practice medicine, could play a more aggressive role in curbing falsehoods. How many doctors have been disciplined, and why do Nick and Taylor believe that state medical boards have fallen down on the job? What are the possibilities for more aggressive action—and how does the First Amendment limit those possibilities? And how much good can the threat of discipline do in curbing medical misinformation, anyway?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yesterday, July 12, the January 6 committee held its seventh in a series of prominent hearings unveiling the findings of its investigation to the public. This hearing focused on the role of extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys in planning the assault on the Capitol, and unveiled new evidence about Trump’s plans to direct protestors to the Capitol in advance of January 6. As always, we convened afterwards on Twitter Spaces to discuss. Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes moderated a conversation with Lawfare Executive Editor Natalie Orpett and Senior Editors Scott Anderson, Roger Parloff, and me.It’s the Lawfare Podcast, July 13: The Jan. 6 Committee, Day Seven.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The “hackers for hire” industry continues to grow unbothered. Reports in recent years have uncovered details about governments and officials using spyware and other security and privacy circumventing tools to target dissidents and other sensitive targets. But another equally invasive and secretive industry has developed over the last decade, involving the use of foreign hackers to win lawsuits and arbitration battles. To discuss this issue, Alvaro Marañon, fellow in cybersecurity law at Lawfare, sat down with Chris Bing and Raphael Satter. Chris is a reporter for Reuters, covering digital espionage and Raphael is a journalist and writer for Reuters, covering cybersecurity. Chris and Raphael recently published an extensive investigation, entitled “How Mercenary Hackers Sway Litigation Battles”, where they breakdown this hackers-for-hire business model in India. They discussed the details around the structure of this marketplace such as how the clients and hackers are matched, the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by the various hacking groups, and what the significance of this illicit industry could be for other sensitive communities. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We often use the terms democracy and liberal democracy interchangeably, but they're not the same thing. Democracy means majority rule and public participation. Liberal democracy means democracy plus minority rights. There's no guarantee that democracy will be liberal. And in fact, some of the same things that enable democracy can also undermine its liberal commitments. Zac Gershberg, a professor of journalism and media studies at Idaho State University and Sean Illing, the host of the Vox Conversations podcast, have recently released a new book, The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media, and Perilous Persuasion.In the book, they argue that every democracy is fundamentally shaped by the dominant media technology of its time. And that the current landscape of social media and cable news fuels our democracy, but also pushes it in an illiberal authoritarian direction. Alan Rozenshtein spoke with Zac and Sean about how American democracy got to this point, how the present compares to the past, and what, if anything, can be done to put liberal democracy on firmer footing. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rational Security is a weekly roundtable podcast featuring Quinta Jurecic, Scott R. Anderson and Alan Z. Rozenshtein. It's a lively, irreverent discussion of news, ideas, foreign policy and law. And there’s always a laugh.This week, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien. They discussed the news of the week, primarily the surprise testimony given by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to the House Select Committee to Investigate January 6th. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From January 8th, 2019: On this episode of the Lawfare podcast, David Priess sat down with John Sipher to discuss the past, present and future history of spy swaps in reference to the 2019 Russian arrest of Paul Waylon, who is currently imprisoned in a Russian labor camp now. This is more relevant than ever, as WNBA star Brittney Griner, who is imprisoned and on trial in Russia on drug charges, sent president Biden a handwritten letter this week pleading for his help in bringing her back to the United States. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.