The Week That Was

Benjamin Wittes discussed how freedom has increased for some while declining sharply for others over the past year of Trump’s presidency. Wittes explained why he believes the freedoms now under attack are more important to a democratic society than the freedoms on the rise, then offered advice on how to “choose” freedom in the face of authoritarian power.

Molly Roberts assessed the president’s authority to tear down the White House East Wing and replace it with a privately funded ballroom. Roberts described the administration’s legal justification for the demolition, the authorities that traditionally oversee White House construction and renovation, and how private donations to fund the ballroom’s construction skirt the restrictions of the Appropriations Clause and the Antideficiency Act.

Alan Rozenshtein warned that artificial intelligence will expand and consolidate presidential power in a way that fundamentally reshapes the executive branch.

Wittes distilled the many pretrial motions former FBI Director James Comey’s legal team has submitted so far, which range from requesting a bill of particulars that clarifies the specific charges against him to arguing that Lindsey Halligan was never lawfully appointed U.S. attorney at all.

On Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration, Wittes sat down with Scott R. Anderson, Loren Voss, Eric Columbus, and Marty Lederman to discuss a district judge’s recent ruling that the acting U.S. attorney in Southern California was serving unlawfully, litigation over the federalization and deployment of the National Guard, legal challenges to the Trump administration’s plan to conduct mass firings during the government shutdown, and more. You can find the recording here or on the Lawfare Youtube channel.

Samuel Estreicher and Andrew Babbitt argued that the Supreme Court should not interpret the 1936 Curtiss-Wright decision as evidence of Congress’s unbounded ability to delegate foreign affairs authority to the executive branch. The authors reviewed the statutes upon which Curtiss-Wright relies and contrasted their limited scope with the broad invocation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act at issue in Trump v. V.O.S. Selections.

Andrew Coan explained how a president could exploit lower courts’ weak enforcement power against the federal government by declining to appeal injunctions to a higher court. Coan argued that—aided by the recent prohibition on universal injunctions—such a strategy could permit the executive to enforce contested policies against everyone but plaintiffs in particular lower court cases while avoiding a politically damaging showdown with higher courts.

Peyton Baker examined the unique internal processes by which Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel can contest dismissals, explaining how policies intended to shield sensitive personnel decisions from the public are now facilitating the politicized dismissal of the bureau’s highest-ranking career staff.

On Rational Security, Anderson sat down with Tyler McBrien and Ariane Tabatabai to discuss the upcoming one-on-one meeting between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, tensions within the executive branch over the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean, the devastation of Hurricane Melissa and predicted American foreign assistance response, and more.

On Lawfare Daily, Katsiaryna Shmatsina sat down with Gabrielius Landsbergis and Vytis Jurkonis to discuss Lithuania’s response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lithuania’s path from Soviet occupation to independence and NATO membership, the past and future of U.S.-Lithuania relations, and more.

Andrew Facini detailed how tactical nuclear weapons raise the risk of global nuclear conflict.  Facini—using the May 10 near-nuclear escalation between India and Pakistan as a case study—outlined short-term steps governments can take to lower the odds of nuclear war.

In the latest installment of Lawfare’s Foreign Policy Essay series, Doreen Horschig argued that despite criticism, U.S. military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities probably did not significantly damage—and may have strengthened—the diplomacy-centered global nonproliferation regime.

Mailyn Fidler broke down how criminal procedures established by the recent United Nations Convention on Cybercrime functionally create a global mutual legal assistance treaty with consequences far beyond combating cyber crimes.

On Lawfare Daily, Justin Sherman sat down with Sarah Powazek and Michael Razeeq to discuss the cyber threats facing states and the possible role of state cyber corps and volunteer programs in addressing those threats. They also examined the process of establishing a cyber corps, the impact of federal workforce and spending cuts on states’ cybersecurity, what state and federal actions might improve states’ cyber postures, and more.

On Scaling Laws, Brett Goldstein, Brett Benson, and Renée DiResta joined Rozenshtein to discuss the increasing sophistication of AI-powered influence campaigns, GoLaxy’s “Smart Propaganda System” and links to Chinese intelligence, the difficulties of detecting influence operations, and more.

Michael Carrier and Derek Slater warned that bolstering copyright protections for content used to train artificial intelligence (AI) tools would not weaken Big Tech, but rather entrench firms that already have large repositories of training data. The authors emphasized that too-strong copyright protections empower firms to act monopolistically without a corresponding increase in compensation for creators.

On Lawfare Daily, McBrien sat down with Quico Toro to discuss Toro and Moisés Naím’s new book “Charlatans: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Hucksters Bamboozle the Media, the Markets, and the Masses.” They discussed what defines a charlatan, the cognitive biases charlatans exploit, how technological and societal changes have made charlatanism an urgent crisis, and more.

And in the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren discussed why a U.S. defense contractor manager’s sale of exploits to Russia should not make governments sour on private-sector exploit development, how strengthening the Office of the National Cyber Director could mitigate the impact of federal workforce and funding cuts on American cyber capacity, a data breach at the U.K. Defense Ministry that allowed the Taliban to target former British partners in Afghanistan, and more.

And that was the week that was.