The Week That Was

Benjamin Wittes examined former FBI Director James Comey’s indictment, including what the charges imply about the prosecution’s strategy and the likeliest paths forward for Comey’s legal team. Wittes highlighted the prosecutor’s refusal to allege a specific factual scenario.

Dan Maurer explained why the administration’s lethal strikes on alleged drug traffickers imply that judge advocates general (JAGs)—the lawyers tasked with providing principled counsel to commanders and others within the Defense Department—are being dangerously sidelined in military decision-making.

Samuel Estreicher and Malcolm Girand argued that nationwide injunctions thwart the percolation of cases through courts, invite partisan forum-shopping, and excessively constrain presidents from both parties. They examined how the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. CASA fell short of the structural change needed to balance intercircuit dialogue with checks on executive overreach, then proposed a three-part plan for striking that balance in the future.

Eric Columbus shared the indictment against Comey issued by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Kate Klonick and Alan Rozenshtein analyzed the TikTok divestiture deal’s compliance with the TikTok ban. The authors considered several possibilities for how the deal may skirt the problem of algorithmic licensing, and explained why the ban’s limited requirement that compliance be certified by the president will likely allow key portions of the deal to remain confidential.

On Rational Security, Columbus, Klonick, and Scott R. Anderson discussed Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension from ABC, the TikTok deal, cryptocurrency deals with the United Arab Emirates, immigration czar Tom Homan’s reported acceptance of $50,000 from undercover FBI agents, and more.

Wittes unpacked President Trump’s rush to push out and replace acting U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert with a more compliant judge following Siebert’s determination that no charges were warranted against Comey. Wittes identified a looming statute-of-limitations expiration on possible charges as a likely reason for the urgency and commented on the president’s habit of proclaiming his political enemies’ guilt on social media.

Wittes and Anna Bower analyzed paths forward for Lindsey Halligan, the former White House aide who replaced Erik Siebert as AUSA for the Eastern District of Virginia this week. Wittes and Bower explore the viability of different cases she could pursue against Comey and James, the fast-ticking clock that accompanies certain charges, and the backwardness of pursuing a case this way at all.

Stevie Glaberson argued that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) fast-growing DNA collection program—which does not consistently require agents to get a warrant or file charges—violates the Fourth Amendment. Glaberson further held that asking for consent during DNA collections is insufficient to make the program constitutional, because the coercive power of DHS over detainees renders free consent impossible.

On Lawfare Live, Wittes sat down with Bower, Columbus, Anderson, Michael Feinberg, and Roger Parloff to discuss politicization of the Justice Department, investigations into James Comey and Letitia James, the Supreme Court granting certiorari in FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter’s challenge to President Trump’s attempt to fire her, litigation around removing immigrants to third countries, and more.

On Lawfare Daily, Anastasiia Lapatina sat down with Minna Ålander and Mykhailo Soldatenko to discuss Russia’s recent air incursions into Poland and Estonia, the history of Russian warfare against Europe, the proportionality of NATO’s response, the U.S.’s relatively muted reaction, and more.

Emilio Peluso Neder Meyer and Thomas da Rosa de Bustamante unpacked the proceedings against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and analyzed what his conviction means for Brazilian democracy, Brazil-U.S. relations, and the broader international community.

Siddhant Kishore examined the recent history of Hezbollah in Lebanon, arguing that the paramilitary group’s current weakness following Israeli military operations provides a critical opportunity to defeat it permanently. He recommended next steps available to both the Lebanese Armed Forces and the Israeli Defense Forces, suggesting that coordination between the two will be key.

On Lawfare No Bull, Isabel Arroyo shared the audio from FBI Director Kash Patel’s testimony at the House Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearing last Wednesday. Patel responded to questions about politicized personnel decisions at the agency, gun violence, the Jeffrey Epstein case, the investigation into Charlie Kirk’s murder, and more.

On Lawfare Daily, Loren Voss sat down with Anderson, Dan Byman, and Ryan Berg to discuss lethal U.S. strikes against drug smuggling boats, the strikes’ legality under international law, Mexico’s ongoing counterdrug efforts, and more.

Kevin Frazier proposed the UNITE-AI Act, a complete draft bill that would establish a framework for federal AI governance. Frazier analyzed risks to AI development posed by state-by-state regulatory experimentation, suggesting that although national security, interstate commerce, and healthy federalism all require that certain kinds of state AI laws be federally preempted, states must maintain some regulatory discretion.

Bruce Schneier analyzed the changing threat assessments that users of digital technology must consider when a government becomes more willing to use data purchased from tech companies for opportunistic prosecutions, political pressure, and other authoritarian ends.

Christian Chung called for closer institutional cooperation between the intelligence community and the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), an understaffed Commerce Department agency whose mandate includes export controls on artificial intelligence (AI)-critical hardware. Chung argued that fortifying BIS with intelligence expertise would make key export control enforcement more precise and more proactive.

On Lawfare Daily, Justin Sherman sat down with Gavin Wilde to discuss how deepfakes impact information ecosystems, the history of fakery in audiovisual technologies, deepfake concerns during 2024 elections, how institutions might pursue a less tech-centric approach to deepfake mitigation, and more.

On Scaling Laws, Rozenshtein, Renee DiResta, and Jess Miers discussed the mental health and safety risks generative AI systems pose to children, the legal implications of those risks, the role of media literacy and parental guidance, and more.

In the latest installment of Lawfare’s Security by Design Paper Series, Omid Ghaffari-Tabrizi, Sherman, and Paul Rosenzweig drew lessons from two years of research into software security by design (SbD). They examined how SbD might be better standardized, compared it to other regulatory frameworks, identified key questions for future research, and more.

And in the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren discussed the increasingly destructive—yet less technically skilled—nature of today’s young cybercriminals, a CSIS report encouraging new forms of retaliation against state-authorized cyberattacks, faster cybersecurity hiring at the Department of Defense, and more. 

And that was the week that was.