The Week That Was

Michael Feinberg examined the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis and the policy failures before and after Good’s death. Focusing on ICE’s shaky legal authority, failures to de-escalate, and the withholding of medical aid, Feinberg analyzed how the agency repeatedly departed from its internal policies and their role as federal law enforcement. 

Carolyn Shapiro analyzed Minnesota’s options for prosecuting ICE agent Jonathan Ross for the fatal shooting of Good. While precedent makes clear that states can prosecute federal officials for violating state law, Shapiro explained that Minnesota’s path forward will hinge on complex factual questions, evidentiary access, and whether Ross has Supremacy Clause immunity. 

On Lawfare Daily, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Feinberg to discuss the Jan. 7 deadly shooting of Good, the legal implications of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s indictment, the disqualification of a U.S. attorney in New York, and more. 

Katherine Pompilio shared the Office of Legal Counsel’s memorandum on purported legal justifications for the U.S.’s military operation in Venezuela and Maduro’s forceful removal. 

Emily Meierding argued that the U.S. invasion of Venezuela to seize its oil reflects a fundamental miscalculation about the economic realities of modern oil politics. Meierding showed how investor reluctance, political instability, and reputational damage make Venezuelan oil far less valuable than the Trump administration assumes. 

Pompilio and Wittes annotated the White House’s new website characterizing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and its aftermath. 

Wittes assessed the Trump administration’s use of criminal investigations as a tactic of governance, from indicting political enemies to the recent investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. 

On Lawfare Live, Wittes sat down with Anna Bower, Molly Roberts, Parloff, and Feinberg to discuss the Trump administration’s investigation into Powell, the attempts to detain Mahmoud Khalil, the ongoing politicization of the Department of Justice, and more.  

Wittes explored a brief from the Justice Department addressing the question of whether Lindsey Halligan could continue to work under the title of “United States Attorney.” Wittes highlighted that the brief—while legally sound—contains a condescending and self-righteous rhetoric that is unwise and unprofessional before a judge, regardless of the dispute.  

Peter Beck shared Sen. Mark Kelly’s (D-Ariz.) complaint against the Department of Defense over the military disciplinary proceedings initiated against him—citing First Amendment, Speech or Debate Clause, separation of powers, and due process violations, among others.

On Rational Security, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Tyler McBrien, Ariane Tabatabai, and Feinberg to talk through the protests in Iran that have resulted in 2,000 to 12,000 fatalities, developments in the Good case, Trump’s talks with diplomatic representatives from Denmark and Greenland, and more. 

On Lawfare Daily, Tabatabai joined Richard Nephew to discuss the latest in Iran, including the ongoing protests and its rebuilding of its nuclear program, the history of U.S.-Iran policy under Trump, and what to expect as the situation develops. 

Aaron Bateman explained that the U.S. maintains dominance over China in great-power space competition because of U.S. allies’ willingness to permit U.S. space infrastructure on their land, while China’s space infrastructure remains dependent on incentivized non-treaty allies.  

Anastasiia Lapatina examined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s sweeping government restructuring, which includes the appointment of a new chief of staff, new defense and energy ministers, and reforms of the law enforcement system. Lapatina argued that the reset could be a major turning point for Ukraine’s defense during wartime.

Afreen Akhter assessed Congress’s reauthorization of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), arguing that while lawmakers expanded the agency’s ability to compete with China, they also constrained its capacity with guardrails driven by short-term political concerns. 

Isabel Linzer and Aliya Bhatia examined the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from 66 multilateral institutions, arguing that the move undercut global human rights protections and weakened U.S. strategic influence. Linzer and Bhatia explained how abandoning these fora jeopardizes everything from digital rights and internet governance to U.S. economic and political leverage on the global stage. 

On Lawfare Daily, Anderson joined Ashley Deeks and Kristen Eichensehr to discuss their recent law review article, “Federalism and the New National Security.” They unpacked their theory of entrepreneurial federalism and described the new ways states are engaging national security policy, the costs and benefits of such practices, and more. 

Heidi Kitrosser reviewed Patrick G. Eddington’s new novel on the use of fear tactics in the history of U.S. governance, titled “The Triumph of Fear: Domestic Surveillance and Political Repression from McKinley to Eisenhower.” Kitrosser highlighted how Eddington’s analysis of past abuses of the national security state give insight into the Trump administration’s actions in today’s political climate.

On Lawfare Daily, McBrien sat down with John Dinkelman to discuss the role of foreign service in U.S. national security and major findings from the American Foreign Service Association’s latest report, “At the Breaking Point: The State of the U.S. Foreign Service in 2025.” 

Joshua Busby, Kim Nguyen, and Steve Slick shared key takeaways from the results of University of Texas at Austin’s national surveys of public attitudes on U.S. intelligence, highlighting that partisanship is increasingly shaping views of the intelligence community. 

Kenneth Propp—amid the Trump administration’s visa bans against five Europeans shaping content moderation policies—assessed the United States’s stance against the European Union’s content moderation laws requiring social media platforms to employ mechanisms for the removal of illegal content, hate speech, and disinformation. 

In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business Cybersecurity Newsletter, Tom Uren discussed China’s crackdown on scam compounds in Southeast Asia, the critical role of disruptive cyber operations in the capture of Maduro, and more. 

Chinasa T. Okolo examined how U.S. retreat from international artificial intelligence (AI) capacity-building has opened the door for China and Russia to shape global AI governance, particularly across the Global Majority. Okolo posited that absent sustained investment in AI education, infrastructure, and local partnerships, the U.S. risks ceding long-term influence over AI systems worldwide.

On Scaling Laws, Alan Rozenshtein sat down with Francis Shen to explore the intersection of AI, criminal justice, and neuroscience, which included ethical concerns of AI bias, practical challenges, and what an AI-augmented justice system might look like. 

And that was the week that was.