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The Lawfare Podcast
Lawfare Daily: Are Former Presidents Immune From Criminal Prosecution? We’re Still Not Sure
It’s the decision we’ve all been waiting for: on the very last day of the Supreme Court’s 2023 term, the Court handed down its ruling in Trump v. United States, concerning the former president’s potential immunity from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Rather than resolving the issue clearly, a 6-3 conservative majority found that presidents enjoy some immunity from criminal prosecution in some circumstances—a ruling that will likely create significant problems for the case against Trump.
Lawfare’s Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes discussed what to make of the opinions and what comes next with Executive Editor Natalie Orpett, Senior Editors Roger Parloff and Quinta Jurecic, and Courts Correspondent Anna Bower, along with special guest Lee Kovarsky of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law.
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Lawfare Daily: The Trial of the North Texas Antifa Cell
57:26|Tom Brzozowski, formerly of the Justice Department; Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy “LT” Edwards; and Steven Monacelli, an investigative correspondent at the Texas Observer, sit down with Lawfare Associate Editor Peter Beck to discuss the ongoing terrorism trial of an alleged Antifa cell in North Texas. The group talks about the events leading up to the trial, practices around domestic terrorism investigations and prosecutions, how the trial is unique to other terror prosecutions, and more.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.
Lawfare Daily: The Tariffs Decision and What Comes Next
54:18|For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sits down with three leading scholars from the Georgetown University Law Center—Professor Kathleen Claussen, Professor Marty Lederman, and Visiting Scholar Peter Harrell of the Institute of International Economic Law—to talk through the Supreme Court’s groundbreaking opinion in Learning Resources, Inc v. Trump, which invalidated the array of global tariffs that the Trump administration had imposed using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).Together, Scott and his guests break down the Court’s opinion, weigh what it might mean for the Major Questions Doctrine and foreign relations law, and look ahead to the legal fights to come over the other tariff authorities the Trump administration is now using to pursue its agenda.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.
Lawfare Daily: The Pentagon Designates Anthropic as a Supply Chain Risk
54:14|In a live conversation on March 2, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes spoke to Lawfare Senior Editor and Research Director Alan Rozenshtein about the Pentagon's designation of AI company Anthropic as a supply chain risk, the implications of a designation, how other AI companies have reacted, and the legal challenges the designation may face.Read Rozenshtein’s article on the topic, co-authored with Michael Endrias, here.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.
Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, Feb. 27
01:41:24|In a live conversation on YouTube, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Senior Editors Scott R. Anderson, Roger Parloff, Molly Roberts, Anna Bower, and Alan Rozenshtein, and Lawfare Public Service Fellow Troy Edwards to discuss the superseding indictment in the case against Don Lemon and his co-defendants in Minnesota, the standoff between the Department of Defense and Anthropic, the firing of FBI agents who worked on the classified documents case, and more.You can find information on legal challenges to Trump administration actions here. And check out Lawfare’s new homepage on the litigation, new Bluesky account, and new WITOAD merch.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.
Lawfare Live: U.S. and Israel Strike Iran
01:00:15|At 9 am ET on March 1, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare Public Service Fellows Ariane Tabatabai and Troy Edwards Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson to discuss the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's response, and what may happen next.
Lawfare Archive: Stephanie Leutert on Violence in Mexico and Central America
37:41|From October 8, 2016: Stephanie Leutert, the Mexico Security Initiative Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Lawfare's "Beyond the Border" series, joined Benjamin Wittes on this week's podcast to talk about the epidemic of violence plaguing Mexico and Central America. Despite the brutality, extremity, and remarkable scale of the violence going on immediately to our south, those of us in the United States who work and think on national security issues rarely consider it to be relevant to national security. Why is that? How bad is the violence in these countries? What's causing the crisis, and the waves of migration it generates, in the first place? And what, if anything, can be done to stop it?To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.
Lawfare Archive: Trump’s Tariffs and the Law
46:01|From February 27, 2025: For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with Kathleen Claussen, an expert in international economic law and professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and Lawfare Contributing Editor Peter Harrell, a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, to discuss the ambitious set of tariffs the Trump administration has imposed or threatened over its first month in office.They discussed the tariffs Trump has imposed so far, what seems to be coming over the horizon, and how they all line up with the legal authorities he is using to impose them.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.
Lawfare Daily: Patronage Pardons: A Conversation with Prof. Lee Kovarsky about a Novel Feature of the Trump Administration
41:38|Lee Kovarsky, an endowed chair professor at the University of Texas School of Law, speaks with Senior Editor Roger Parloff about patronage pardons, the subject of his forthcoming article in the Duke Law Journal.Patronage pardons are pardons a president issues to reward and possibly even induce criminality by political supporters. Kovarsky discusses whether the founders anticipated such pardons, gives examples of such pardons, explores how they differ from ordinary pardons, and ponders whether anything can be done to rein them in.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.
Lawfare Live: Unpacking the Kilmar Abrego Garcia Hearing with Anna Bower
28:11|In a Feb. 26 Lawfare Live, Lawfare Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes and Lawfare Senior Editor Anna Bower discussed the evidentiary hearing in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia criminal case which focused on the motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution. This episode is a part of Lawfare’s new livestream series, Lawfare Live: The Now. Subscribe to Lawfare on Substack or YouTube to receive an alert for future livestreams. To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.