Suzanne Spaulding, John Bellinger, Mary DeRosa, Stuart Gerson, Glenn Gerstell, Peter Keisler, Robert Kugler, Paul Michel, Nuala O’Connor, Liam O’Grady, Philip Pro, Paul Rosenzweig, Nicholas Rostow, Jeffrey Smith, Bruce Swartz, and Kenneth Wainstein assessed the importance of meaningful judicial review in preserving the rule of law and democratic legitimacy, especially when facing unchecked assertions of executive authority on issues of national security.
On Lawfare Live,Benjamin Wittes sat down with Anna Bower, Roger Parloff, Molly Roberts, Eric Columbus, Peter Harrell, and Troy Edwards to discuss the amended complaint in Fulton County’s suit against the FBI seizure of 2020 presidential election ballots, a judge in Minnesota holding a U.S. attorney in civil contempt, the Supreme Court’s decision in Learning Resources et al v. Trump, and more.
Anna Hickey shared the Supreme Court’s opinion in Learning Resources, in which the Court found that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize President Trump to impose tariffs due to proclaimed drug trafficking and trade deficit national emergencies.
Nick Bednar analyzed the constitutional theory expanding presidential control over the federal workforce embedded within Office of Personnel Management’s new rule that implements the newly designated Schedule Policy/Career as part of the excepted service. Bednar explained that the rule would gut federal tenure protections, and weaken the professional federal workforce.
Wittes posed ten questions that may be answered over the course of the next year of American law and politics, including how a "malevolent despot” might rig the midterm elections, how much more the president’s polls might erode, and more.
On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Peyton Baker, Columbus, Parloff, Bower, and Edwards to discuss the arraignment of journalist Don Lemon and his co-defendants in Minnesota, the affidavits supporting the search warrant executed by the FBI at the Fulton County election center, the Justice Department attempt to wipe out Steve Bannon’s conviction, and more.
Baker reported from the arraignment of Lemon and other defendants charged under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and the conspiracy against rights statute related to their presence at the Jan. 18 protest at Cities Church in Minneapolis.
On Lawfare Daily, John Albanese joined Natalie K. Orpett to discuss the flood of habeas corpus cases in Minnesota sparked by a surge of immigration enforcement actions. The pair unpacked what these cases look like in the courtrooms, how the legal field has come together to address the needs of people in detention, what the government is doing in response, and more.
Camille J. Mackler argued that the increase in immigration enforcement actions targeting refugees from Afghanistan reflects a critical misunderstanding by the U.S. government of effective vetting and threat mitigation.
Miro Sedlák examined how prolonged legal disputes over domestic U.S. military deployments impact ally relationships, including with other NATO members, and erodes allies’ long-standing trust in the U.S.’s predictability.
Wittes unpacked the underlying message of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, suggesting that it ultimately conveyed the U.S.’s willingness to upend its rules-based relationship with European allies.
On Rational Security, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Daniel Byman, Michael Feinberg, and Ariane Tabatabai to unpack some of the recent happenings in security around the world, including the Munich Security Conference, negotiations on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the Trump administration’s approach to China, and more.
In the latest edition of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Omar García-Ponce laid out the challenges ahead—purposefully fragmented armed forces, corruption of the state by criminal and non-state armed actors, and the vulnerability of the oil sector—for a new Venezuelan government, whether transitional, U.S.-backed, or democratically elected.
On Lawfare Daily, Anastasiia Lapatina sat down with Eric Ciaramella and Francis Farrell to look back at the first year of the second Trump administration’s approach to the war in Ukraine. The trio also discussed the role of Europe in supporting Ukraine, the future of Ukraine and Russia, the ongoing peace talks, and more.
As part of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law’s conference on precision lethality and civilian harm mitigation, Leonard Rubenstein argued that elevating the legal duty of proportionality to shield hospitals from attacks during wartime would, at minimum, significantly reduce the devastating civilian death toll during armed conflict.
Netta Barak-Corren and Jonathan Boxman explained how new requirements set by major donors of humanitarian aid, such as mandatory security by UN peacekeepers or accredited guards and sunset clauses, can help prevent the misappropriation of aid by armed groups and authoritarian regimes to subsidize war and conflict.
On Lawfare Daily,Justin Sherman joined Jonathan Cedarbaum to discuss the former’s new book on the proliferation of U.S. national security programs designed to safeguard technology and data transactions.
Pablo Chavez explained that the United States promotes sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) for its allies as deployment control built on American technology, while partner nations interpret AI sovereignty as reducing long-term dependence on U.S. technology and supply chains. This mismatch—as demonstrated by hybrid approaches in countries such as India—creates a gap that could weaken U.S. influence in global AI governance.
J.B. Branch compared the U.S.’s quick implementation of xAI’s Grok AI chatbot in government operations to the marked caution and restraint shown by U.S. allies after Grok’s nonconsensual imagery scandal. Branch argued that the integration of Grok in U.S. federal systems is discordant with the Trump administration’s proclaimed policy goal to champion safe, controlled, and reliable AI use.
Alan Z. Rozenshtein argued that, rather than private AI companies or the Department of Defense, Congress should set regulatory limits and requirements for AI use in the military to uphold democratic governance.
In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business Cybersecurity Newsletter, Tom Uren explained why European countries should consider launching cyber campaigns against Russia, how U.S. policymakers should help protect domestic AI companies from proprietary information attacks by competitors, and more.
On Scaling Laws, live from the 2026 Ashby Workshops, Andrew Freedman and Gillian K. Hadfield joined Kevin Frazier to discuss why traditional AI regulation models struggle to keep up with rapid AI innovation, the usefulness of hybrid governance, how regulatory markets fit into AI governance, and the future of adaptive AI policy design.
Also on Scaling Laws, Amanda Askell joined Rozenshtein and Frazier to discuss Anthropic’s constitution for its AI chatbot, Claude. The trio’s conversation covered how the constitution is used to shape Claude’s behavior, analogies to constitutional law, the question of AI personhood, how commercial incentives complicate the picture, and more.
And that was the week that was.
