Criminal Justice & the Rule of Law Executive Branch

Lawfare Daily: The Justice Department as a Political Weapon

Kate Klonick, Benjamin Wittes, Anna Bower, Bob Bauer
Tuesday, September 30, 2025, 7:00 AM
Discussing the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
Meet The Authors

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

Subscribe to Lawfare

In a live conversation on September 29, Lawfare Senior Editor Kate Klonick spoke to Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare Senior Editor Anna Bower, and Professor of Practice at New York University Bob Bauer about the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey and what it says about the Trump administration’s ongoing politicization of the Department of Justice. This conversation is a part of our newly-launched show, Lawfare Live: The Day After, on Substack. You can join us for the next one by becoming a free subscriber to our Substack at lawfare.substack.com.

To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.

Topics:
Criminal Justice & the Rule of Law Executive Branch
Back to Top
Kate Klonick

Kate Klonick

Read More
Kate Klonick is an Associate Professor at St. John’s University Law School, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, Harvard Berkman Klein Center and a Distinguished Scholar at the Institute for Humane Studies. Her writing on online speech, freedom of expression, and private internet platform governance has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, The New Yorker, the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Washington Post and numerous other publications. For the 2023-2024 academic year, she was a Fulbright Schuman Innovation Scholar in the European Union where she was a Visiting Professor at SciencesPo and University of Amsterdam researching and writing about the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act.
Benjamin Wittes

Benjamin Wittes

benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org
Read More
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
Anna Bower

Anna Bower

@annabower
annabower.bsky.social
Read More
Anna Bower is a senior editor at Lawfare. Anna holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Cambridge and a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School. She joined Lawfare as a recipient of Harvard’s Sumner M. Redstone Fellowship in Public Service. Prior to law school, Anna worked as a judicial assistant for a Superior Court judge in the Northeastern Judicial Circuit of Georgia. She also previously worked as a Fulbright Fellow at Anadolu University in Eskişehir, Turkey. A native of Georgia, Anna is based in Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
Bob Bauer

Bob Bauer

Read More
Bob Bauer served as White House Counsel to President Obama. In 2013, the President named Bob to be Co-Chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, and in 2021, President Biden named him Co-Chair of the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States. He is a Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law and teaches and writes about presidential power, political reform, and legal ethics.
}

Subscribe to Lawfare