Today's Headlines and Commentary

President Trump is considering Jim Webb, a former Democratic senator and Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, to be the next defense secretary, reports the New York Times.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Iran’s failure to cancel its plans to launch new satellites would be met with consequences but stopped short of specifics if Iran were to proceed, details the Washington Post.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit lifted a preliminary injunction on the Trump administration’s restriction on transgender men and women serving in the military, reports the Post. The per curiam ruling will have no immediate effect, as federal judges in three other cases have also enjoined the administration from implementing the policy. It is unclear what effect the ruling will have on the administration’s petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment in the case before the D.C. Circuit and other cases regarding the restrictions on service. The Supreme Court is scheduled to decide whether to grant certiorari during its Jan. 11 conference.

French police arrested a prominent leader of the Yellow Vest movement, as the government moves to crack down on the protests that have shaken France since November, says the Times.

Judge Richard Leon ordered Jerome Corsi’s lawsuit against Special Counsel Robert Mueller to be transferred to a new judge because Corsi had tried to land the case with Leon, circumventing the typical assignment process, which assigns cases randomly, reports NPR.

ICYMI: Yesterday on Lawfare

Dan Maurer considered whether principles of judicial independence or civil-military relations are at the core concern about the prudence of President Trump’s recent interest in the pending trial of Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, a former Green Beret accused of killing a suspected combatant in a manner that would have violated the law of war and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Andrei Gribakov outlined the differences between Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation and APEC’s Cross Border Privacy Rules, the latter of which was recently recognized by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement as a valid data privacy protocol.

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