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On Lawfare Daily, Scott R. Anderson sat down with Peter Harrell to discuss two rulings that enjoined President Donald Trump's tariffs, the similarities and differences between the courts’ decisions, what it might mean for the other uses of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and more.
On June 6 at 4 p.m. ET, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Anna Bower, Roger Parloff, and James Pearce to discuss challenges to the Trump administration’s mass reductions in force, litigation over deportations and detentions, and more. If you would like to be able to submit questions to the panelists and watch the livestream without ads, become a material supporter of Lawfare on Substack or Patreon. The recording is available on Lawfare’s YouTube channel and will be available later on the Lawfare Podcast feed.
Anderson explained why several recent statements by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit could provide important insight into how it is likely to approach ongoing litigation over the Trump administration’s deregulatory actions. Anderson provided background on Widakuswara v. Lake, in which the court suggested that congressional direction matters in funding and personnel action—posing implications for judicial scrutiny in other cases.
On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Bower to discuss her recent article chronicling her search for the administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). While the article is partly humorous, Bower and Wittes talked about the serious questions raised by her quest.
Kori Schake responded to Graham Parsons’s argument that the military has an obligation to resist legal orders when the civilian authority threatens civil society and the neutrality of the military. Schake argued that encouraging the military to disobey lawful orders endangers democracy and suggested that it is the role of other branches of civilian government, not the military, to check the executive’s power.
Jason Healey and Paul Rosenzweig warned that President Trump faces few constraints if he chooses to initiate domestic military cyber operations against those he deems enemies. Healey and Rosenzweig outlined existing jurisprudence regarding Trump’s use of emergency powers to domestically deploy the military, and considered how these authorities might be applied to the cyber domain, including to monitor the Defense Department, disrupt immigrant-related electronic networks and communications, and surveil political opponents.
Anne Joseph O’Connell considered the constitutional issue of whether the president has the legal authority to fire the librarian of Congress and the statutory issue of whether the president can use the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 to name an acting librarian of Congress.
On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Anderson, Bower, and Parloff to discuss the civil litigation targeting Trump’s executive actions, including two court rulings finding Trump’s IEEPA tariffs to be unlawful, the government’s appeal of those rulings, the Supreme Court allowing Trump to end the humanitarian status of 500,000 migrants, updates in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Government Efficiency, and more.
Wittes considered the authority behind Trump’s June 5 executive orderpurporting to restrict the entry of foreign nationals who plan to attend Harvard University, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f). Wittes suggested that the president’s expansive reading of the law—which was invoked to declare the travel ban during his first administration—is dangerous and incorrect, intending to punish a domestic group by way of excluding foreigners.
Katherine Pompilio shared Trump’s executive order purporting to restrict the entry of foreign nationals to the United States who plan to attend Harvard University.
Pompilio also shared Trump’s proclamation purporting to restrict the entry of foreign nationals from 19 countries.
Wittes offered fifteen theses on Trump’s unprecedented use of the pardon power, which has outstripped that of other presidents both in the nature of the crimes pardoned and the number of persons granted clemency.
Pompilio shared a White House memorandum directing the counsel to the president and the attorney general to conduct an investigation into alleged efforts of former White House aides to conceal former President Joe Biden’s “cognitive decline.”
Mykhailo Soldatenko broke down the terms of the recently signed deal establishing the U.S.-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. Soldatenko emphasized that the agreement’s lack of security guarantees, uneven revenue sharing—determined by a yet-undisclosed partnership agreement—and more illuminate the difficult choices Ukraine faced in agreeing to the deal.
On Lawfare Daily, Wittes sat down with Anastasiia Lapatina and Soldatenko to discuss the latest in Ukrainian-Russian developments. They unpacked this week’s surprise attacks, an amassing of troops, bridge explosions, peace talks in Istanbul, and more.
Nicholas Weaver broke down “Operation Spiderweb,” Ukraine’s June 1 attack on Russian military infrastructure that inflicted extensive damage on Russian air bases, pointing out that the operation—which hid drones in ISO containers—has consequences beyond the immediate conflict. Weaver suggested that this new strategy will require costly defensive action on Russia’s part and instigate widespread paranoia—and that it may result in a shift in how warfare is conducted globally.
On Rational Security, Anderson sat down with Lapatina, Eric Ciaramella, and Alex Zerden to talk through the week’s big national security and foreign policy news, including the U.S.’s widespread exceptions to Syrian sanctions programs, Ukraine’s drone attack deep into Russian territory over the weekend, and two different federal courts’ decision to enjoin Trump’s tariffs last week.
Amichai Cohen and Yuval Shany outlined the most recent developments in the ongoing dispute between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the High Court of Justice over the government’s decision to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet). Cohen and Shany explained that the Court’s judgement that the dismissal was unlawful despite Bar’s recent resignation—and Netanyahu’s subsequent announcement of a new Shin Bet head—places Israel’s judicial system and government on a potential collision course, risking a constitutional crisis.
Daniel Byman outlined the strategic value of the Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism in an evolving threat landscape. Byman offered recommendations to enhance the bureau’s effectiveness, such as increasing funding, depoliticizing the bureau’s power to designate foreign terrorist organizations, and more.
Devorah Margolin examined how recent funding cuts, including the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, risk undermining efforts to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Margolin explained that the funding freeze affects a central element of the mission—preventing a new generation of Islamic State militants—with implications for the operation of detention centers and repatriation and reintegration efforts.
Ivonne Duarte-Peña examined the U.S. and the European Union’s rollback of sanctions against Myanmar in the 2010s. Duarte-Peña asserted that sanctions relief can be used as leverage to enact political and economic reforms in a country of interest.
In the latest installment of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Jayita Sarkar discussed why the region of Balochistan—which declared independence from Pakistan in May—faces a difficult path to sovereignty due to foreign powers’ interest in the region’s natural resources and Pakistan’s efforts to repress Baloch nationalism.
Wittes explained that although Operation Spiderweb—Ukraine’s weekend drone attack on Russian strategic bombers—is impressive given the asymmetry between Ukrainian and Russian capabilities, it does not rewrite the rules of war as some have suggested.
In the fourth episode of Escalation—Lawfare and Goat Rodeo’s limited series narrative podcast chronicling the surreal twists and turns in the U.S. and Ukraine’s relationship over the years—co-hosts Tyler McBrien and Lapatina covered Ukrainians’ resistance to Russian interference in the 2004 presidential campaign and a 2008 NATO summit where the U.S. and European allies formulated a high-risk plan to protect Ukraine.
In the fifth episode of Escalation, McBrien and Lapatina covered the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine—sparked by then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to back out of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement—and the West’s response to Russia’s 2014 invasion of parts of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
Renee DiResta discussed right wing attacks on the impending integration of the Disinformation Code of Practice into the EU’s Digital Services Act. DiResta acknowledged issues with the regulation, such as uneven compliance and private industry involvement, but emphasized that many of the criticisms—which cast the regulation as authoritarian in nature—are intended to delegitimize content moderation and efforts to combat disinformation.
Kevin Frazier explained why tort-based liability schemes to mitigate harms associated with artificial intelligence (AI)—proposed by New York's Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act—will fail. Frazier highlighted how AI’s diffuse, rapidly evolving nature requires a regulatory system that can adapt as the technology develops.
On Lawfare Daily, Quinta Jurecic moderated a panel discussion at Fordham Law School’s Transatlantic AI and Law institute, featuring panelists Joseph Cox, Orly Lobel, Aziz Huq, and James Grimmelmann to discuss the connection between technology and democratic backsliding, both historically and in the present day.
In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren discussed how Operation Endgame—a multinational joint law enforcement operation—is making headway in combating ransomware operations, recent findings that a mobile spyware app may have played a central role in the collapse of the Assad regime, and a new report from The Insider that traces how Russia’s GRU Unit 29155 evolved from a military intelligence group to a cyber operations organization.
Alexandra Paulus explained that while the Pall Mall Process—an initiative bringing together states and non-state actors to address the proliferation of commercial cyber intrusion capabilities—has taken important steps to tackle the problem, it falls short in several key respects. Paulus offered three suggestions moving forward, including broadening the initiative’s scope, ensuring implementation through accountability mechanisms, and developing a code of practice for industry.
And Roger Parloff reviewed Emmanuel Carrere’s “V13: Chronicle of a Trial,” which recounts the 2021 trial of fourteen men for their alleged involvement in the November 2015 terrorist attacks in France. Parloff praised Carrere’s detailed coverage, attention to the proceedings’ emotional weight, attempts to understand the perpetrators’ motives, and more.
And that was the week that was.
