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The Trump Administration’s Flawed Guantánamo Narrative
On Saturday, I wrote a post for Just Security titled “Whitewashing Guantánamo,” in which I explained how three different data points from the past week underscored a consistent and troubling pattern by t... -
Defending Norms by Defending Norms
One of the proudest days of my life was, oddly enough, January 20, 2009. It's the day I lost my last full-time job. At 11:59 AM, I was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Hom... -
Sanctuary 101, Part I: What Trump’s Executive Order Doesn’t Do, Cannot Do, and Has Little To Do With
A month after President Trump issued his January 25, 2017 executive order, “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” there remains a great deal of confusion: about what qualifies as... -
Today's Headlines and Commentary
The New York Times reports that the Trump administration is looking into loosening Obama-era constraints intended to prevent civilian deaths from counterterrorism missions outside conventional war zones.... -
The Week That Will Be
Event Announcements (More details on the Events Calendar) Monday, March 13th at 2pm: James Kirchick will launch his new book, entitled The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age a... -
This Week at the Military Commissions, 3/10 Session: Motion Sickness and Medical Side Effects
March 10th opens with a lengthy examination of an unnamed Senior Medical Officer (SMO), who was formerly responsible for caring for Nashiri from September 2016 through February 2017. The defense team hav... -
This Week at the Military Commissions, 3/9 Session: A Timeline for Discovery
Our usual crew returns to Nashiri where we left them on the 8th—debating a timeline for discovery. -
The National Security Lawyer, In Crisis: When the “Best View” of the Law May Not Be the Best View
Since my time in the Obama Administration, I have been interested in exploring questions of how, most productively and realistically, to think about national security lawyering processes and standards. ... -
What China’s Coal Ban Is and What It Isn’t
On February 18, 2017, Beijing abruptly announced that it would suspend all coal imports from North Korea through the end of this year. China’s Ministry of Commerce explained the move as part of its effor... -
DOJ Delivered Only Copy of SSCI Report to Court, Senate Democrats Write
As Benjamin Wittes and I have noted, the last few weeks of the Obama administration and the first months of the Trump administration generated some activity surrounding the Senate Intelligence Committee’... -
The Legality of the 3/6/17 Executive Order, Part II: The Due Process Clause Analysis
On March 6, 2017, President Trump issued a new executive order on immigration that superseded an order he signed on -
Guantanamo Redux: Why It was Opened and Why It Should Be Closed (and not Enlarged)
It is hard to believe that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility is back in the headlines fifteen years after it opened and eight years after President Obama ordered it closed. Having been present at its...
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