The Lawfare Podcast

Our friends at the National Security Institute at George Mason University came over last week 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.

In this fourth episode of the special Culper Partners Rule of Law series, David Kris and Nate Jones speak with former White House Counsel Kathy Ruemmler. Prior to her White House service, Kathy served as the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General at the Department of Justice, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, DC, and on the Enron task force. Earlier in her career, Kathy was an Associate Counsel to President Bill Clinton, where she defended the White House and the Office of the President in independent counsel and congressional investigations. Kathy spoke with David and Nate about her service as President Obama's White House Counsel and how her experience at the Department of Justice instilled in her a deep respect for the rule of law, including limits on interactions between the White House and DOJ concerning particular investigations and other matters. She has grave concerns about the inherent conflict facing President Trump's subordinates, who must remain faithful to the rule of law while trying to carry out the legitimate policy goals of the elected president. She is not optimistic that this can be done, and she raises the question of whether those who remain have compromised to the point of enabling the president's misconduct.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Back in February, we hosted Bill Harlow and Marie Harf, two former public affairs officers at the Central Intelligence Agency, to discuss how the CIA interacts with reporters on sensitive national security topics. For this episode, we thought it only fair to turn that around and also talk about how it's seen on the other side. Mary Louise Kelly is a voice familiar to many as an anchor of All Things Considered on NPR. She previously spent a decade as national security and intelligence correspondent for NPR News after working for CNN and the BBC. Shane Harris, in addition to co-hosting the Rational Security podcast, now covers intelligence and national security for The Washington Post, after writing about the same for outlets like The Wall Street Journal, Daily Beast, and National Journal. David Priess recently sat down with Mary Louise and Shane to discuss the challenges of covering national security, to address myths about the intelligence beat, and, unsuccessfully, to uncover their sources.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There's a special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, but with Brexit and the erratic presidency of Donald Trump, it hasn't exactly been business as usual between the two countries. Or has it? British Ambassador to the United States, Sir Kim Darroch, sat down with Benjamin Wittes last week to talk about the alliance, particularly in moments of uncertainty for both countries. They talked briefly about Brexit, but they mostly discussed other key areas of mutual cooperation, like counterterrorism in the Middle East, countering Russian aggression, and what to do about a rising China. Thanks to our sponsor Blinkist. Get your 7-day free trial at blinkist.com/lawfare. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From 1989 to early 2017, Sue Biniaz was the lead climate lawyer and a climate negotiator at the State Department. She was also a key architect of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a UN-negotiated agreement designed to mitigate global warming, which went into effect in November 2016. In June 2017, President Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the agreement. Sue sat down with Lawfare's Jack Goldsmith to talk about the early days of U.S. and international climate action, how the Paris Agreement came into force and the predecessor agreements that gave rise to it, how it was supposed to operate, and what impacts Trump's actions have had on international climate policy.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller sent his report to Bill Barr on Friday, and the attorney general sent a letter to Congress on Sunday detailing the principal conclusions of the Mueller report. Benjamin Wittes talks about it all with Lawfare Executive Editor Susan Hennessey, former senior Justice Department official Carrie Cordero and former assistant attorney general for national security David Kris. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this third episode of the special Culper Partners Rule of Law series, David Kris and Nate Jones speak with former Senator Saxby Chambliss, who served as a senator from Georgia from 2003–2015, and in the House of Representatives from 1995–2003. During his tenure in the Senate, he was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, where he served as Vice Chairman from 2011–2014. His previous role as Chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security made him one of the leading congressional experts on those issues. They talked about the history of the congressional intelligence committees, the significance of election interference, and the proper penalties for lying to Congress. Chambliss also described what it was like to serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee, even describing a particular situation that is apparently still classified and undisclosed, as well as revealing whom he considers to be the best legislator he ever knew.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Demographic, technological, and geostrategic developments are disrupting the electoral landscape in sub-Saharan Africa. How do these shifts affect the political climate for democracy and participation across Africa? What have recent elections in Nigeria illustrated about these? And what about the clash between China and the United States in Africa? To explore these questions, David Priess spoke with Judd Devermont, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, host of the Into Africa podcast, and former national intelligence officer for Africa from 2015 to 2018.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s Robert Mueller as you’ve never heard him before. We have something special for you on the podcast today. Something very different. The Mueller report is coming. We all know that. We don’t know what’s going to be in it. We don't know when it's showing up.  But Bob Mueller has already told a remarkable story. He’s told it scattered through different court filings in a variety of cases, indictments, plea agreements, stipulations of fact. We decided to distill it, to organize it, to put it all in one place, to tell the story of the Russia investigation orally, to let a remarkable group of speakers read the speaking indictments that Mueller has issued. So here’s the story of the Russia conspiracy, distilled to a brief audiobook in seven chapters. What you’re about to hear is all taken nearly verbatim from actual Bob Mueller filings. We’ve cut a lot, moved stuff around, and changed a few words here and there to make it sound more like a narrative. We have changed the meaning not at all. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bill Browder, human rights campaigner and foe of Vladimir Putin, seems to get arrested whenever he travels abroad as a result of red notices and diffusion orders issued by Putin through the Interpol police organization. These incidents have highlighted the abuse of Interpol by authoritarian governments, and they raise a really important question: Should we be participating in an international police organization with governments that use that organization to harass and arrest their enemies? On this episode of The Lawfare Podcast, Benjamin Wittes speaks with two people with somewhat different points of view, although a lot of common ground: Bill Browder himself, along with Jago Russell, the head of Fair Trials, which has worked to reform Interpol and make it less susceptible to abuse. Bill argues for kicking the bums out and having police cooperation only between countries that observe civilized norms of law enforcement. Jago makes the case for mending, not ending, an inclusive international police organization.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.