The Lawfare Podcast

Chuck Rosenberg is a former U.S. Attorney, former senior FBI official, and the former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He is now an analyst with NBC News and MSNBC. He also has a podcast with MSNBC called The Oath with Chuck Rosenberg. The podcast draws its name from the Oath of Office, which many public servants take upon their entry into government service. In the podcast, Chuck speaks with other former government officials about their careers, pivotal moments they witnessed in history, and what drew them to public service. He sat down with Benjamin Wittes this week to discuss his podcast, his career in government service, and his thoughts on the Oath of Office.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Christine Fair is an expert on South Asian politics and extremist groups, and it's been a bad few weeks in Sri Lanka. A major terrorist attack, the largest since 9/11, hit multiple locations targeting Christians on Easter morning. The violence was different from the usual terrorism that rocks Sri Lanka from time to time, and Benjamin Wittes asked Christine to come in and talk us through it. What's going on in the island nation? How does it map onto the history of ethnic tensions between Tamils and Sinhalese? And what does it mean for the future of Muslim extremism in South Asia?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jared Cohen is the founder and CEO of Jigsaw and Alphabet Inc., who previously ran Google Ideas and served as a member of the Secretary of State's policy planning staff and as an advisor to Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. He is also the author of a new book on the presidency called, "Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America." It describes the times in American history when a president has died in office, forcing eight other men, who are neither the voters' nor their party's choice, to confront unparalleled challenges. David Priess spoke with Jared recently about their stories and the lessons we can learn from their experiences.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The podcast discusses the Mueller report's findings on Russian interference in the 2016 US election, including disinformation campaigns, hacking operations, and contacts between Trump campaign affiliates and Russian nationals. It explores the strengths and limitations of viewing the report as an intelligence document, and the differences between intelligence and law enforcement in espionage investigations. The chapter also discusses the challenges of finding time to read and introduces the Blinkist app. It analyzes instances of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian actors in relation to the hacking of Hillary Clinton's emails. The podcast concludes with a discussion on the implications of the Mueller report on ongoing Russian intelligence operations.

On May 10, the Brookings Institution hosted a public conversation between former FBI General Counsel Jim Baker, who is now the Director of National Security and Cybersecurity at the R Street Institute, and Brookings Senior Fellow Benjamin Wittes. The conversation was recorded live as a Bonus Edition of the Lawfare Podcast. The conversation covered how the FBI thought about the Russia investigation in those fateful months both before and after the president fired FBI Director James Comey. How did the president’s conduct toward the bureau impact the institution? How does it affect career public servants like Baker? And how does Baker feel now about the president and his conduct after reading the Mueller report?Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this sixth episode of the special Culper Partners Rule of Law Series, David Kris and Nate Jones speak with former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick. Jamie has had a career spanning the legal, policy, and corporate worlds, in and out of government. Currently a partner at WilmerHale, she has represented corporations and individuals in a wide array of matters, particularly in the regulatory and enforcement arenas. In government, she was one of the longest serving Deputy Attorneys General of the United States. Prior to that, she was the General Counsel at the Department of Defense. She serves and has served on numerous government boards and commissions, including the Defense Policy Board, and she was a member of the 9/11 Commission. Jamie speaks with David and Nate about her years of experience as a lawyer in government and the private sector. She talks about the shame of current attacks on the rule of law and prosecutorial independence, her self-described "hawkish" views on when it's appropriate for the news media to publish classified information, and she describes a time when she was involved in a major dispute involving whether and to what extent the FBI should brief the White House on efforts by a foreign government to influence U.S. elections.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On April 23, the Hoover Institution hosted the latest iteration of the Security by the Book series, where Jack Goldsmith interviewed Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman about their new book, “Of Privacy and Power, The Transatlantic Struggle Over Freedom and Security.” They talked about how the relationship between Europe and U.S. has changed in response to regulations and other government action in the security and privacy spheres on both sides of the Atlantic.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bill Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and domestic policy advisor in the Clinton White House, wrote his column this week in the Wall Street Journal arguing against impeachment in a fashion that sharply diverges from arguments made by others on Lawfare. He argues that polling data shows that an impeachment inquiry would be an irresponsible direction for anyone hoping to remove Trump from office. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Bill to discuss his column, as well as his recent book, "Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy."  They talked about populism as an international and domestic phenomenon, the role of economics and identity in driving populism internationally, and whether populisms of the left and right are symmetric issues or whether they present different ones.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Attorney General Bill Barr appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to discuss the Mueller report and the Justice Department’s wider efforts to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. The evening before the testimony, multiple outlets reported that Mueller had sent Barr a letter expressing concerns that the attorney general’s summary of the report’s conclusions “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the special counsel’s work. The hearing became contentious, and covered a wide array of topics ranging from Barr’s conduct to the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But we cut out all the unnecessary repetition and theatrics to leave you with just the questions and answers that you need to hear.   It's the Lawfare Podcast, Bonus Edition: Barr vs. the Committee with No Bull.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On January 17, 2019, BuzzFeed News reported a blockbuster. The headline reads, President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower Project. It was a remarkable story, and within 24 hours of its publication, the Special Counsel's office had issued an unprecedented statement taking issue with it and describing unspecified components of it as "inaccurate." It wasn't clear at the time what parts of the story were inaccurate and how much of it was true, but in light of the actual Mueller report, we can now identify the parts of the story that had problems and the parts that did not. The two reporters who wrote the story, Anthony Cormier and Jason Leopold, joined Benjamin Wittes by phone to do a kind of after-action report on the story. They discussed how they came to report what they reported, what parts of the story they stand by, what parts they think they messed up on, how the story was sourced, and what the discrepancy between the story and the Mueller report tells us about the conduct of Donald Trump.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.