Olivia Manes, Molly Roberts, and Ema Rose Schumer discussed the FBI’s search of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home in connection with a government leak investigation and what it reveals about the fragile legal protections for journalists. The authors emphasized that as the Trump administration abandons long-standing norms shielding the press, unresolved questions about the Espionage Act, the Privacy Protection Act, and the First Amendment are likely to be tested in court.
Roger Parloff dissected the potential justifications behind U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and found many of the claims were unfounded, if not abusive.
Roberts deconstructed the Trump administration’s so-called grand conspiracy and examined how the sprawling narrative about a coordinated plot against President Trump has permeated into a Florida grand jury hearing despite lacking legal or factual coherence.
On Lawfare Daily, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Roberts to discuss her new article on the “grand conspiracy” investigation and a grand jury probe in Florida.
On Lawfare Live, Anna Bower, Michael Feinberg, Parloff, and Roberts joined Wittes to explore the Trump administration’s investigation into Powell, attempts to detain Mahmoud Khalil, ongoing politicization of the Department of Justice, and more.
On Rational Security, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Shane Harris, Loren Voss, and Bower to discuss the Justice Department subpoenas to at least five Democratic state officials amid aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tactics in Minnesota, updates on the Powell investigation, the Havana Syndrome device, and more.
On Lawfare Live, Wittes sat down with Eric Columbus, Bower, Manes, and Parloff to discuss the search of Natanson’s home, the Justice Department’s criminal inquiries into Minnesota state officials, oral arguments at the Supreme Court in President Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve, and more.
Orin Kerr analyzed a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo asserting that ICE agents may forcibly enter homes with only an administrative immigration warrant. Weighing Fourth Amendment case law, Kerr posited the DHS’s legal argument is likely unconstitutional while noting the potential difficulty of obtaining judicial review.
On Lawfare Daily, Bower spoke with Bryna Godar and Carolyn Shapiro about Minnesota’s jurisdiction to criminally investigate the ICE agent who reportedly shot and killed Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7. The discussion also covered the potential obstacles the state may face in its prosecution and the likelihood of a successful Supremacy Clause immunity defense.
Matthew B. Lawrence explained why the expiration of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) comptroller general’s term could become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s push to displace congressional control by manipulating federal spending.
Nick Bednar argued that the Merit Systems Protection Board no longer functions as the independent adjudicator that Congress had intended at its formation. Tracing the expansion of presidential removal powers, efforts by the Justice Department to bind the Protection Board to the Office of Legal Counsel’s interpretations, and recurring quorum failures, Bednar warned that without congressional action, the Protection Board will lose its structural purpose in its entirety.
Aditi Shah unpacked the surge in ultra vires claims challenging executive action and the fight over what standard courts should apply when the government acts beyond its statutory authority. Shah asserted that courts should reject the administration’s push for a default near-impossible standard and instead apply a long-standing test of whether an official’s act was justified by law.
Wittes contended that there is no constitutional or political quick fix for an unrestrained president driven by grandiosity and impulse. Wittes wrote that Americans and U.S. allies can expect to face a long, grinding struggle to contain the damage of Trump’s second term.
Renée DiResta reviewed the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s report, “Understanding and Addressing Misinformation About Science,” which outlined a strategy to combat scientific misinformation that was published just as Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. assumed office. DiResta contended that the challenge is no longer misinformed individuals but instead the social media platforms and government agencies that use state power to redefine scientific knowledge.
As part of the Lawfare Lecture series, Laura Field taught her fourth lecture on the intellectual movement that has emerged around Trumpism and discussed its post-liberal faction. Field delved into the contradictions within the two ideologies, the complexities of defining the common good, the apocalyptic rhetoric prevalent amongst post-liberal thinkers, and more.
On Lawfare Daily, Anderson sat down with Joel Braunold to discuss the Trump administration’s recently released plans for the Board of Peace, which has been tasked with implementing its peace plan in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas War. They unpacked the state of international relations surrounding the ceasefire in Gaza, how the Board of Peace plan intersects with the administration’s 20-point peace plan, and more.
Tyler McBrien and Wittes analyzed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as a historic break in Canada’s relationship with the U.S.
Ariane Tabatabai argued the diplomatic tools that the U.S. has historically relied on to curb nuclear proliferation—such as predictable policy, durable alliances, and long-term multilateral pressure—are no longer fit for today’s fractured geopolitical stage. Using Iran as a case study, Tabatabai posited that if the U.S. hopes to prevent adversaries and allies from nuclear armament, it needs to develop a more flexible and efficient nonproliferation toolkit.
Jason Healey suggested that a sustained U.S. cyber campaign against Venezuela could be more effective, humane, and politically sustainable than repeated military strikes to achieve U.S. goals. While strategically risky, Healey contended that targeted, nonlethal cyber operations tied to limited, concrete demands may succeed where traditional coercion has failed.
In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren examined how Iranians are using SpaceX’s Starlink to bypass government-imposed internet blackouts, what happened at Gen. Joshua Reed’s Senate confirmation hearing to lead the National Security Agency (NSA) and Cyber Command, and more.
Kevin Frazier examined Anthropic’s “Claude’s Constitution,” a novel attempt to govern artificial intelligence (AI) behavior through publicly articulated and hierarchical values. Drawing connections from constitutional law, Frazier explored what this experiment in AI constitutionalism could mean for model behavior, legitimacy, and the future of AI governance.
Alan Z. Rozenshtein argued that Anthropic’s AI constitution is an ambitious attempt to train an AI as a person with moral judgment and character. In comparing Claude’s Constitution to Aristotelian virtue ethics, Rozenshtein questioned whether the company’s moral framework can scale globally or survive the financial and geopolitical pressures bearing down on frontier AI developers.
On Scaling Laws, Jakub Kraus joined Frazier and Rozenshtein to discuss Anthropic’s ‘constitution’ for its AI large language model “Claude” and what the document’s principles reveal about the company’s approach to AI development. The conversation also covered how market forces are shaping the AI industry, the question of whether an AI model might ever gain consciousness or moral awareness, and more.
Matteo Pistillo argued that AI implementation by the Department of Defense should prioritize tests for reliability and alignment over capability alone. Pistillo warned that misaligned AI could deceive its users, leak sensitive information, or sabotage missions, and recommended that the Pentagon and the intelligence community upgrade their testing frameworks to detect and mitigate these security risks before deployment.
Brian McGrail explained how the Trump administration’s effort to use billions of broadband funds to pressure states into rolling back AI regulations rests on shaky legal footing. McGrail contended that the statutory text, federalism canons, and the major questions doctrine all stand against allowing the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to leverage infrastructure funding in reshaping AI policy.
On Scaling Laws, Shlomo Klapper joined Frazier to parse through the rise of judicial AI, the challenges of scaling the use of technology inside courts, its implications for due process, and more.
And that was the week that was.
