Katherine Pompilio analyzed the post-clemency records of individuals pardoned for their roles in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and found that at least 97 pardonees have since been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of other crimes. Pompilio explained that the study reveals the scale of subsequent criminal activity by Jan. 6 insurrectionists and highlights the lack of review, oversight, and accountability associated with the clemency process, especially when issued en masse.
On Lawfare Daily, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Pompilio to discuss her new Lawfare piece in which Pompilio found that at least 97 individuals who were granted clemency for their roles in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack have since been arrested for, charged with, or convicted of other crimes. Their conversation covered the details of these 97 pardonees’ crimes, what those crimes reveal about the consequences of the presidential pardon, and more.
Anna Bower and Eric Columbus explained how despite the Trump administration’s abandonment of its plan to create an “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” the administration can still use other legal tools—including the Judgment Fund and the Federal Tort Claims Act— to achieve a similar goal with little meaningful oversight from Congress or the courts.
On Lawfare No Bull, Marissa Wang shared audio from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s testimony at the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee hearing on June 3, where Blanche was questioned about the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” the Trump family’s settlement terms with the IRS, and more.
On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Roger Parloff, Molly Roberts, Bower, and Columbus to discuss three legal challenges to the Trump administration’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper’s order to block the shuttering of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., post-dismissal developments in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, and more.
Parloff examined the Department of Justice’s reported criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll and Reid Hoffman, arguing that the probe appears to be a politically motivated abuse of prosecutorial power and will be difficult to justify on legal grounds.
On Lawfare Live, Bower, Columbus, Parloff, and Roberts joined Wittes to discuss a hearing over the construction of the White House ballroom, the halting of civil lawsuits against Trump over his role in Jan. 6, and more.
Nick Bednar assessed President Trump’s implementation of Schedule Policy/Career, which recategorizes roughly 8,000 federal employees into positions with reduced civil service protections. Bednar argued that the executive order is part of the Trump administration’s effort to expand presidential control over career civil servants and threatens the political independence of the federal workforce.
On Lawfare Daily, Tyler McBrien sat down with Emily Bazelon to discuss three pieces Bazelon and her colleagues recently published in the New York Times Magazine that shared stories from dozens of current and former government employees on the insider’s perspective of navigating the upheaval of the second Trump administration.
Dan Maurer examined the possibility that the Trump administration could deploy federal troops or immigration agents near polling places and argued that state election officials should proactively educate voters on their rights and the legal limits on military and law enforcement. Maurer contended that clear public “rules of engagement” could reduce intimidation and potential confrontations if armed federal personnel appear at election sites.
Thomas Berry argued that Trump’s appointment of William Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) exposes major flaws in the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. Berry explained that Congress should narrow eligibility for acting appointments to officials within the same agency and apply qualification requirements to acting officers to prevent unqualified or politically influenced appointees from bypassing Senate scrutiny.
On Rational Security, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Anastasiia Lapatina, Ariane Tabatabai, and McBrien to unpack Trump’s unexpected selection of Pulte as the next DNI, developments in the U.S.-Iran War negotiations, the current state of Russia’s offensive operations in Ukraine, and more.
On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with an American Army veteran who volunteered in 2022 with the Ukrainian military, known by the call signal "Jackie," to discuss how Jackie came to serve in the Ukrainian army, the changes in drone warfare over the course of the war, and how things are starting to look up for Ukraine.
Christopher Hardee argued that the Trump administration is using the indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro to support a flawed legal theory that allows the U.S. to justify military intervention abroad as a law enforcement operation. Hardee explained how this “indict-and-invade” rationale misinterprets the president’s legal authority and undermines domestic and international law.
In the latest edition of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Alexander Palmer analyzed how the rapid expansion of jihadist groups across West Africa signals a broader shift in the regional balance of power away from governments and toward militant organizations. Palmer warned that if current trends continue, the region could be headed toward state collapse, prolonged instability in the Sahel, or even the emergence of a new hub for global terrorism.
Jane Munga examined how African data protection laws have allowed governments to block or reshape international health and biometric data-sharing agreements that conflict with domestic law. Munga contended that, while effective as a defensive legal architecture, African states should further leverage these laws to negotiate agreements that protect their economic interests in the long-term value generated by their data.
In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren unpacked the rising threats facing NATO’s cyber operations, the use of commercial location data to target U.S. military personnel in conflict zones, and more.
Branko Ruzic explained that if the U.S. became the target of the increasingly common exploitation of civilian internet-connected cameras by foreign states for intelligence gathering, the current framework of U.S. cybersecurity policy would not be equipped to handle the security risks posed by pre-existing civilian camera networks.
Alex Joel argued that the debate over renewing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is not as polarizing as it seems when it is framed as a choice between requiring warrants for all U.S. person queries versus maintaining the status quo. Instead, Joel proposed a hybrid model in which the FISA courts play a more targeted oversight role to better balance between civil liberties protections and national security needs.
Jason Healey reviewed Jon Lindsay’s book, “Age of Deception: Cybersecurity as Secret Statecraft,” on the roles of trust and deception in statecraft and cybersecurity. Healey explained that while deception is a crucial feature of intelligence contests and high-end cyber operations, it cannot explain cybersecurity as a whole without considering factors such as vulnerabilities, ransomware, cybercrime, software insecurity, and emerging threats driven by artificial intelligence (AI).
Kevin Frazier examined how emerging cyber threats enabled by AI are exposing weaknesses in the design and authority of the Office of the National Cyber Director, which Congress created to coordinate U.S. cyber policy. Using the Trump administration’s inconsistent responses to advanced AI models as a case study, Frazier contended that Congress should strengthen the office’s authority, resources, and coordinating role to ensure the federal government can effectively manage increasingly complex AI-cyber risks.
Pompilio shared Trump’s executive order on AI, which directs federal agencies to strengthen AI-enabled cybersecurity defenses by coordinating with the private sector.
On Lawfare Daily, Renée DiResta sat down with Christopher Hale to discuss Pope Leo XIV’s entrance into the AI debate, what it means to “disarm” AI, the perspective of the Pope’s new encyclical, Silicon Valley’s response, and more.
On Scaling Laws, Frazier sat down with Tom Davidson to unpack the increasingly urgent debate over “AI character” and how the character of future AI systems may influence democratic governance, military conflict, institutional trust, and more.
Also on Scaling Laws, Frazier sat down with Owen Larter to discuss how Google’s DeepMind approaches frontier governance, including how DeepMind establishes national AI partnerships, the role of the Frontier Model Forum, the challenge of expanding AI adoption, and more.
And that was the week that was.
