Eric Columbus and Molly Roberts explained how the attempted shooting at the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner could have significant legal implications in the ongoing lawsuit centered on the construction of President Trump’s “Militarily Top Secret Ballroom.” Columbus and Roberts contended that how Judge Richard Leon decides may test how far the courts are willing to go in giving national security deference to the executive.
On Rational Security, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Natalie K. Orpett, Joel Braunold, and Ariane Tabatabai to discuss updates in the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict and the Lebanon ceasefire, King Charles’s visit to the U.S. and the state of the U.S.’s relationship with its NATO allies, the political implications of the attempted violence at the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, and more.
On Lawfare Live, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Anna Bower, Nick Bednar, Roger Parloff, and Roberts to discuss the Department of Justice’s second indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, updates in the litigation to halt the construction of the White House ballroom, and more.
Bower and Roberts unpacked the role of former U.S. Attorney Joseph DiGenova in the “Grand Conspiracy” investigation, an inquiry that delves into a supposed plot against Trump and his supporters. Bower and Roberts explained how diGenova’s public statements over the course of eight years on the conspiracy may now cast doubt on his ability to act as an impartial prosecutor in its legal proceedings.
Parloff assessed the key claims made in Mullin v. Dahlia Doe and Trump v. Fritz Emmanuel Lesley Miot, two cases that will be heard by the Supreme Court on April 29 on the issue of Temporary Protected Status for Syrians and Haitians living in the U.S. Parloff argued that even if the two cases fail on procedural claims, the equal protection claims based on the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant statements may survive.
On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Troy Edwards, Bower, Columbus, and Parloff to discuss the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Department of Justice’s decision to drop its investigation into Jerome Powell, the government’s renewed attempt to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and more.
Michael Endrias and Bertina Kudrin unpacked the arguments presented in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe I, a case that was heard by the Supreme Court on the morning of April 28 centered on whether the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act allows for victims of the Chinese government’s detainment and torture to file a lawsuit against Cisco Systems for allegedly aiding and abetting violations of human rights and international law.
On Lawfare No Bull, Marissa Wang shared audio from the oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Chatrie v. United States, a case focusing on a Fourth Amendment privacy challenge to the use of geofence warrants.
On Lawfare Daily, Chinmayi Sharma joined Tyler McBrien to discuss Sharma’s forthcoming law review article, “Immigration Enforcement Intermediaries,” which centers on the U.S. federal government’s increasingly privatized and automated system of immigration enforcement. The two also discussed the role of private technology vendors, how states and sub-federal entities counteract the harms, and more.
Scott Levy examined the ongoing 10-week long shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security and how it demonstrates a key structural asymmetry in the balance of power between the president and Congress, due to the executive’s power to impose discretionary exceptions that allow certain agencies and functions to continue operating during a congressional shutdown.
Bednar explained how the firing of Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey reveals a major weakness in the doctrine requiring federal employees to route employment disputes through the Merit Systems Protection Board before going to court. Bednar contended that Comey’s case serves as a broader test of whether the executive can use Article II power to bypass longstanding civil service protections.
Erin Sikorsky and Shuchi Talati examined the warnings published in two new national security reports on solar radiation modification. The two explained how both reports’ single-track security perspective in analyzing the risks of the developing climate intervention technology may undermine productive research and governance and amplify perilous conspiracy rhetoric.
On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Charles Minshew, Megan Nadolski, and McBrien to discuss a new narrative podcast series from Goat Rodeo and the Atlanta Journal Constitution called “Who Blew Up the Guidestones?” The group discussed the mystery surrounding the explosive destruction of the Georgia Guidestones in July 2022, Georgia’s Bureau of Investigation, over-the-counter explosives, QAnon, and more.
Peter E. Harrell analyzed the legality of Trump’s recently announced changes to his tariffs on metals and his new pharmaceutical tariffs. Harrell argued that Trump’s new tariff actions warrant greater legal and congressional scrutiny under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
Nas Lawal explained the constitutional and historical pathways through which new entities can join the United States. Lawal examined how accession has occurred through treaties, congressional acts, referenda, and negotiation rather than any single constitutional process.
In the latest edition of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Henry Ziemer assessed the scope and importance of arms trafficking for cartel power in the Western hemisphere and argued that the Trump administration should crack down on the flow of high-powered weapons from the U.S. to Mexico in order to achieve its goal of dismantling transnational criminal organizations.
John Drennan and Tabatabai examined the Hungarian parliamentary elections as a case study for how the Trump administration’s overt attempts to shape European elections and empower far-right, nationalist allies are failing. Rather than weakening Europe and boosting MAGA-aligned governments, the duo explained how U.S. intervention is strengthening European unity, autonomy, and backlash against Washington.
Eyck Freymann argued that China is using “lawfare,” in the form of domestic statutes, international institutions, and legal pretexts, to pressure Taiwan incrementally. Freymann urges the United States and its allies to develop coordinated legal and operational plans before a crisis forces the countries to improvise a response.
In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren unpacked the White House’s promise to counter Chinese attempts to steal proprietary capabilities of American frontier artificial intelligence (AI) models, how Chinese threat actors are using botnets of compromised smart devices to facilitate cyber attacks, and more.
Jake Steckler and Sam Winter-Levy examined how middle powers can learn from Ukraine’s leveraging of its drone manufacturing ecosystem and its valuable data generation capabilities to uniquely position itself as a critical component of the international military AI supply chain.
Mark Thomas argued that AI companies should create a mandated collective statutory authority, inspired by the finance industry’s self-regulatory organizations, to effectively coordinate AI risk management and regulation amongst companies with government oversight.
On Scaling Laws, Kate Klonick and Kevin Frazier sat down with Marietje Schaake to unpack the growing role of tech giants in democratic functions, the “privatization of policy,” and why Schaake believes that without urgent intervention, the “rule of law” will be replaced by the “rule of code.”
Cullen O'Keefe, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, and Christoph Winter argued that AI tools will likely expand executive branch power by increasing efficiency and reducing friction. Keefe, Rozenshtein, and Winter called for a new legal research agenda to ensure AI adoption in government preserves checks and balances, civil liberties, and the rule of law.
On Scaling Laws, Bennett Borden joined Frazier to discuss AI firm Clarion AI Partners’s interdisciplinary approach to AI adoption, the importance of their work, and the developments underway at major AI labs to align model use with user expectations.
On Lawfare Daily, Gavin McCormick joined Frazier to discuss how AI and satellite imagery are lifting the veil on the “black box” of global greenhouse gas emissions. They also discussed the legal implications of “radical transparency,” how AI-driven data can be used to enforce regulations and measure claims, and the myths and facts of AI’s environmental consequences.
Also on Lawfare Daily, Jonathan G. Cedarbaum sat down with Anja Shortland to discuss the latter’s new book, "Dark Screens: Hackers and Heroes in the Shadowy World of Ransomware,” and the emergence and operations of organized crime groups specializing in digital extortion and ransomware-based cyber crime.
And that was the week that was.
