The Week That Was

Molly Roberts analyzed the Justice Department’s indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, calling attention to the case’s weakness on the merits as well as career prosecutors’ extreme reluctance to touch it.

Ema Rose Schumer detailed the exacting evidentiary standards that defendants—including former FBI Director James Comey and Salvadoran immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia—must meet to have their case dismissed for vindictive or selective prosecution.

Roger Parloff live-blogged an Oct. 6 status conference in the habeas case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, where Judge Paula Xinis gave the government until Wednesday to file evidence on steps it has taken to secure Abrego’s removal to Eswatini.

On Lawfare Live, Parloff, Natalie Orpett, and Anna Bower discussed the arraignment of James Comey, who pleaded not guilty on federal charges of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation.

Benjamin Wittes reflected on unorthodox features of Comey’s arraignment, highlighting the unpreparedness of the prosecution and the clear pride of Comey’s defense team.

Tyler McBrien shared the two-count Oct. 9 indictment of Letitia James alleging that she fraudulently falsified records related to a home she owned in Norfolk, VA.

Parloff live-blogged the Oregon v. Trump district court hearing of October 3rd, after which ultimately secured a temporary restraining order blocking 200 Oregon National Guard troops from being federalized over the governor’s objection.

Bower live-blogged an Oct. 5 temporary injunction hearing in Oregon v. Trump, after which Judge Karin Immergut again blocked the deployment of federalized troops to Oregon.

On Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration, Wittes sat down with Bower, Parloff, Loren Voss, and Eric Columbus to discuss litigation over the federalization and deployment of the National Guard in Portland and Chicago, the criminal prosecution of James Comey, the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and more.

Roberts examined the Trump administration’s looming mortgage fraud case against Letitia James, spotlighting several unusual features of the investigation and the overall deficiency of the likely charges.

Wittes asked questions about life, the future of the U.S. government, and the viability of a constitutional republic led by leaders without shame.

Roberts explained how federal website banners and out-of-office email signoffs blaming Democrats for the government shutdown implicate—but may not explicitly violate—the Hatch Act, which restricts federal civilian executive branch employees from engaging in political activity.

On Lawfare: No Bull, Isabel Arroyo shared key audio from Attorney General Pam Bondi’s testimony before a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing. The committee questioned Bondi about politicized personnel decisions at the Justice Department, the deployment of the National Guard to states, antitrust and anti-corruption enforcement, and more.

On Lawfare Daily, Orpett sat down with Philip Pro and Jeremy Fogel to discuss how courts are handling an influx of legal challenges to Trump administration policies, instances of violence against judges, strong intra-branch tensions, concerns about judicial independence, and more.

Amos Toh and Julia Gledhill urged lawmakers to reject provisions of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act slashing data disclosure and oversight requirements for military acquisitions. The authors held that such changes would not streamline the acquisition process, but rather degrade the efficacy of military hardware and empower contractors to overcharge the Department of Defense.

Wittes argued that recent U.S. strikes on drug traffickers represent acts of murder, not war, and reflected on who—if anyone—could be held criminally accountable.

On Rational Security, McBrien, Voss, and Daniel Byman joined Scott R. Anderson to discuss potential domestic military deployments to Portland and Chicago, the Trump administration’s shuttle diplomacy for a Gaza peace deal, the odds of U.S.-backed regime change in Venezuela, and more.

Robert Callahan analyzed the challenge of training military artificial intelligence (AI) systems to follow the laws of armed conflict (LOAC), and proposed a three-part “test and evaluation” framework for training LOAC-compliant AI tools.

Ali Jessani and Sam Kane compared the international data transfer obligations imposed by Congress in 2024 with the more rigorous requirements of a recent Justice Department rule, examining how the two regulatory schemes target data brokerage and how each is expected to be enforced.

On Lawfare Daily, Justin Sherman sat down with Jen Roberts and Sarah Graham to discuss the past, present, and future of the global spyware industry; the geographic concentration of key spyware entities in several countries; the recent rise in spyware investment within the U.S.; the impact of “strategic jurisdiction hopping” on transparency, and more. 

Henrik Stålhane Hiim and Øystein Tunsiø warned analysts who compare U.S.-China tensions to the Cold War not to underestimate the risk of “hot” war over Taiwan. The authors argued that maritime geography and other factors render hostilities with China—including nuclear hostilities—significantly more likely than they were with the Soviet Union. 

On Lawfare Daily, McBrien sat down with Philippe Sands, author of “38 Londres Street,” to discuss the intertwined stories of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Nazi SS Commander Walther Rauff, how the legal battle over Pinochet’s extradition changed international criminal law, how writing a book on Pinochet informed Sands’s thinking on the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity ruling in Trump v. United States, and more.

Yotam Berger analyzed Microsoft’s decision to block Israeli intelligence from using cloud services to mass-surveil Palestinians, arguing that the move exemplifies tech companies’ emerging—and powerful—role as “surveillance intermediaries.”

Arun Sukumar examined the “sovereign cloud” services that U.S. hyperscalers are marketing to European leaders who fear overreliance on American tech. Sukumar warned that these services remove incentives for governments—particularly in the Global South—to keep the internet free.

Sherman broke down how European data brokers jeopardize both European security and American personnel in Europe. Sherman explored why European governments have historically paid less attention to data aggregation by brokers than by other digital actors and outlined how European governments might look to U.S. law to curb data broker abuses.

In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business newsletter, Tom Uren discussed ransomware gang Clop’s transition from encryption attacks to less-harmful data extortion, the need to combat state-backed anti-U.S. influence operations abroad, better security at Google Workspace, ChatGPT’s capacity to detect scams, and more.

And on Scaling Laws, Ravi Iyer and David Sullivan joined Kevin Frazier to unpack the similarities and differences between social media and AI companions, the importance of regulating with the end user in mind, current policy proposals, and more.

And that was the week that was.