In April, we ran Episode One of our narrative podcast series Escalation on this feed. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for the next few weeks, we’ll be posting the rest of the series, starting today with Episode Two.

Escalation is a multi-part narrative podcast co-hosted by Lawfare’s Managing Director Tyler McBrien and Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina, covering the history of U.S.-Ukrainian relations from the time of Ukrainian independence through the present. You can subscribe to the whole series, as well as our other narrative series, on the Lawfare Presents channel.

In Episode Two: No Guarantees: Newly-independent Ukraine inherits a nuclear arsenal from the former Soviet Union. So the United States, Russia, and Ukraine craft a high-stakes deal to disarm Ukraine in exchange for national security protection. Some see it as a diplomatic success, but for others, it’s a betrayal.

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John Keller, now a partner at Walden, Macht & Haran, channeled his experience as the former Chief of the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice to discuss three recent developments with James Pearce, Lawfare Legal Fellow. They discussed proposed changes to the Public Integrity Section that could hamper the Justice Department’s ability to investigate and prosecute corruption matters in a fair and impartial matter. Keller weighed in on whether the Justice Department has a viable prosecution theory for criminal threats or incitement in the case of former FBI Director, Jim Comey. And they discussed criminal contempt: what it is, how it differs from civil contempt, the recent criminal contempt probable-cause finding by Judge Boasberg in an Alien Enemies Act case in the District of Columbia, and whether the federal rule permitting appointment of a special prosecutor outside the Justice Department may pose constitutional separation-of-powers concerns.

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From May 3, 2024: Over the past several years, governors around the country from both political parties have used their respective National Guards for an increasingly unconventional array of domestic missions, ranging from teaching in public schools to regulating immigration at the southern border. To discuss how this trend may impact the National Guard—and our broader democracy, particularly in this pivotal election year—Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson recently sat down with a panel of senior former National Guard and Defense Department officials, including: General Craig McKinley, General Joseph Lengyel, Brigadier General Allyson Solomon, Major General Daryl Bohac, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense Dr. Paul Stockton. 

A video recording of the panel is available at https://www.brookings.edu/events/domestic-deployment-of-the-national-guard/.

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From December 4, 2023: Is the Fourth Amendment doing any work anymore? In a forthcoming article entitled “Government Purchases of Private Data,” Matthew Tokson, a professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, details how, in recent years, federal and state agencies have begun to purchase location information and other consumer data, as government attorneys have mostly concluded that purchasing data is a valid way to bypass Fourth Amendment restrictions. 

Lawfare Senior Editor Stephanie Pell sat down with Matthew to discuss this article, where he attempts to bring this constitutional evasion to light. They talked about the two main arguments offered for why the purchase of private data does not violate the Fourth Amendment, his responses to these arguments, and the recommendations he makes to courts, legislators, and government agencies to address the Fourth Amendment and privacy concerns surrounding government purchases of private data.

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In a live conversation on May 22, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Legal Fellow James Pearce to discuss legal challenges against President Trump’s executive actions, including the a court hearing over the attempted deportation of immigrants to South Sudan, the arrest of Democratic Representative LaMonica McIver, the Supreme Court opinion allowing President Trump to remove members of independent agencies, and more.

You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here. And check out Lawfare’s new homepage on the litigation here and new Bluesky account here.

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Global Cyber Alliance’s President and CEO Phil Reitinger and Chief Business Officer Komal Bazaz Smith discuss with Justin Sherman critical cybersecurity issues facing core internet infrastructure, including the role of small, often under-appreciated, and frequently underfunded nonprofits in keeping the internet secure and functioning. They talk about their organization’s Common Good Cyber project (video here) to address gaps, detail how better data could help inform internet security efforts, and talk about how the current landscape is shifting internet security into the future.

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This week, Scott sat down with a particularly baritone cast of Lawfare colleagues—co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes, Foreign Policy Editor Dana Stuster, and Senior Editor (aka Legal Correspondent) Roger Parloff—to discuss the week’s biggest national security news stories, including:

• “Let’s Sheikh On It.” President Trump completed a surprisingly historic trip to the Persian Gulf last week, which began with the type of fanfare that Trump loves and only Saudi Arabia can provide and ended with the controversial gift of a new Air Force One from Qatar at the president’s reported request. In between, however, Trump reiterated his calls for an end to the Gaza conflict, became directly involved in negotiating the release of the last living American-Israeli hostage from Hamas, and announced a dramatic about-face in U.S. sanctions policy toward the new regime in Syria that caught even his closest advisers by surprise—all measures that are unlikely to be greeted warmly by the man who has traditionally been Trump’s closest regional ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How big a pivot point was Trump’s trip? And what could its implications be for U.S. policy towards the region?
• “Not Retiring from a Fight.” The Supreme Court issued an unprecedented third opinion off its emergency docket this past week in the inaptly named A.A.R.P. v. Trump, part of the ongoing litigation over the Trump administration’s controversial efforts to remove Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act. In a 7-2 ruling, the Court held that the summary notice and opportunity to challenge that U.S. officials had provided to some individuals prior to their removal was inadequate. But as litigation through the lower courts continues, what impact is this holding likely to have on the administration’s broader immigration policies?
• “Shell Shocked.” Former FBI Director James Comey found himself at the center of an unlikely controversy this week, when his decision to relay a photo of shells arranged to form the numbers “8647” that he reportedly found on the beach was interpreted as a death threat against President Trump, triggering a Secret Service interview and potentially more legal consequences to come. How seriously should this incident be taken? And what does it tell us about the Trump administration’s use of prosecutorial discretion?

In Object Lessons, as white smoke rose over the Vatican, Roger also turned his gaze heavenward—diving into Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner’s “The Sistine Secrets” to uncover the subtexts Michelangelo left behind. Inspired by the same papal events, Scott turned to Conclave for a peek inside the process. Ben planted seeds of solidarity and resilience (or was that resistance?) across from the Russian embassy. And Dana’s incoming students at Franklin and Marshall College are about to share in his appreciation for Osamu Dazai’s “The Setting Sun.”

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Page Hedley, Senior Advisor at Forecasting Research Institute and co-author of the Not for Private Gain letter urging state attorneys general to stop OpenAI’s planned restructuring, and Gad Weiss, the Wagner Fellow in Law & Business at NYU Law, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor at Minnesota Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare, to analyze news of OpenAI once again modifying its corporate governance structure. The group break down the rationale for the proposed modification, the relevant underlying law, and the significance of corporate governance in shaping the direction of AI development.

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Despite the frenzy of U.S.-led diplomacy around reaching a ceasefire in Russia’s war against Ukraine, the front line has been far from quiet. In fact, the war is now deadlier than ever before. To unpack the recent front line developments, Lawfare’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina talks with Francis Farrell, a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who covers military and security dynamics in Ukraine.

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El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has made a lot of headlines recently in the United States for his partnership with the Trump administration. Bukele has helped enable President Trump’s scheme to remove supposed Venezuelan gang members from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act, housing these detainees in the notorious CECOT prison. In court, the Justice Department has claimed it has no ability to request that Bukele return these detainees to the United States, even after Bukele posed for photos next to Trump in the Oval Office.

The use of CECOT is key to the Trump administration’s effort to paint migrants as dangerous criminals. But what is Bukele getting out of the scheme, and what do things look like from within El Salvador? 

To understand this, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with Noah Bullock, Executive Director of the Central American human rights organization Cristosal. Their conversation places CECOT in context of broader efforts by Bukele to consolidate his power and erode Salvadoran democracy. It also addresses Bukele’s ongoing crackdown on dissent in El Salvador over the last week—a crackdown that most recently included the sudden arrest on March 18 of Noah’s colleague Ruth López, who heads Cristosal’s anti-corruption work. 

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In a live conversation on May 16, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Roger Parloff and Lawfare Legal Fellow James Pearce to discuss legal challenges against President Trump’s executive actions, including the Friday hearing in the Abrego Garcia litigation, the Supreme Court’s ruling in an Alien Enemies Act case, oral arguments at the Supreme Court over President Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, and so much more.You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here.

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From September 26, 2023: On August 21, the Human Rights Watch released a report detailing systematic abuses of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers at the Saudi Arabia-Yemen border. Researchers interviewed dozens of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers and found that Saudi border guards had used explosive weapons on them and shot migrants at close range.

Lawfare’s Associate Editor of Communications Anna Hickey sat down with Joey Shea, a researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch who investigates human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They discussed the Human Rights Watch recent report, how the international community has responded so far, and the human rights record of Prince Mohammed bin Salman since he ascended the throne in 2015. 

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From January 4, 2022: Government secrecy is pervasive when it comes to national security and foreign affairs, and it’s becoming more and more common for state and even local governments to invoke government secrecy rationales that in the past, only the president of the United States and the national intelligence community were able to claim. While some of the secrecy is no doubt necessary to ensure that police investigations aren't compromised and state and local officials are getting candid advice from their staff, government secrecy directly threatens government transparency and thus democratic accountability. Alan Rozenshtein spoke about these issues with Christina Koningisor, a law professor at the University of Utah and the author of “Secrecy Creep” a recently published article in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, along with the Lawfare post summarizing her work.

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For today’s episode, Lawfare General Counsel and Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Contributing Editor Joel Braunold, the Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, for the latest in their series of podcast conversations delving into the latest developments relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and related regional issues.

This time, they discussed the state of the Gaza conflict, what Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East says about his relationship with regional leaders, his dramatic moves on Syria sanctions, his administration’s increasingly direct role in hostage negotiations with Hamas, and what it all means for the stability of Israel’s current government—among many, many other issues.

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This week, Scott sat down with his Lawfare colleagues Natalie Orpett, Tyler McBrien, and Daniel Byman to talk through the week’s big national security news, including:

• “Borderline Behavior.” A major flare-up over the disputed region of Kashmir took place this past week, leading to a major exchange of hostilities between the nuclear powers of India and Pakistan before they agreed to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire—one that is mostly holding, despite alleged violations on both sides. How durable a resolution does this seem likely to be? And what additional steps need to be taken to preserve peace?
• “Parting Ways.” President Trump announced a major change to U.S. policies in the Red Sea this week, in the form of a ceasefire with the Yemeni armed group and de facto government Ansar Allah (also known as the Houthis), in which they would cease attacks on U.S. shipping. But the credibility of this commitment is in doubt, as are the implications of U.S. actions for shipping through the Red Sea more broadly. What should we make of this major policy shift? 
• “First Class Problems.” President Trump announced this week that he would be accepting the gift of a luxury jet from the government of Qatar for use as Air Force One during his presidency, which would then be transferred to his foundation shortly before he leaves office in 2029. How big a problem is this? And how can he accept this gift, given that the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause prohibits “accept[ing]...any present…of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State”?

In Object Lessons, Tyler delighted in the Financial Times’s trolling of its own “Lunch with the FT,” in which Sam Altman’s kitchen and gross misuse of olive oil becomes a bizarre metaphor for OpenAI. Natalie delighted in some hometown, Pope-town pride (and some Lou Malnati's pizza). Scott delighted in discovering both Dolcezza and their affogato with decaf espresso, a dessert for those who crave flavor and excitement but who also like sleep. And Dan, in utterly failing his wife, delighted in reaping the benefits of her Mother’s Day gift: a little contraption that sits somewhere between wellness hack and medieval torture rack.

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For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman talked with Evan Braden Montgomery and Toshi Yoshihara, both Senior Fellows at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, to discuss their recent Lawfare article, "Beijing's Changing Invasion Calculus: How China Might Put Taiwan in its Crosshairs." 

Together they discuss how China might use a blockade, subversion, and nuclear threats to intimidate Taiwan, the United States, and key regional states like Japan. They also discuss how Taipei and Washington might change their approach to reduce the risk of Taiwanese coercion.

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Cullen O’Keefe, Research Director at the Institute for Law and AI, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and a Contributing Editor at Lawfare, and Renée DiResta, Associate Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown and a Contributing Editor at Lawfare, to discuss a novel AI governance framework. They dive into a paper he co-authored on the concept of "Law-Following AI" or LFAI. That paper explores a near-term future. Imagine AI systems capable of tackling complex computer-based tasks with expert human-level skill. The potential for economic growth, scientific discovery, and improving public services is immense. But how do we ensure these powerful tools operate safely and align with our societal values? That’s the question at the core of Cullen’s paper and this podcast.

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Donald Trump was confident he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks. It’s now been more than three months since Trump’s reelection, and even a short-term ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia remains elusive.

Why did Trump fail? And what can really force Russia to stop the war? To answer these and many other questions, Lawfare’s Ukraine Fellow Anastasiia Lapatina spoke with prominent Ukrainian analyst Mykola Bielieskov, who is a Research Fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a Senior Analyst at the Come Back Alive Foundation.

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In a live conversation on May 9, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Anna Bower, Quinta Jurecic, and Roger Parloff, Lawfare Legal Fellow James Pearce, and Lawfare contributor Preston Marquis to discuss the status of the civil litigation against President Trump’s executive actions, including the order for the release of Rümeysa Öztürk, litigation over ideological deportations, legal challenge to the funding freeze targeting Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and more.

You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here.

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From February 22, 2024: As a new report on the intimidation of state and local officeholders from the Brennan Center for Justice points out, “The January 6 insurrection at the Capitol seemed to mark a new peak in extremist intimidation targeting public officials. But it was hardly the only act of political violence to break the period of relative stability that followed the assassinations of the 1960s.” Citing the 2017 shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise, last year’s hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, and many other cases, the report paints a troubling picture of today’s climate of political violence in America. 

To talk through the report and its implications, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic and Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sat down with Maya Kornberg, a Research Fellow at the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program and one of the report’s authors. They discussed how Maya and her team surveyed so many state and local officials across a number of jurisdictions, the pervasive risks and threats those officeholders face, and how these threats are distorting U.S. democracy as a whole.

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