Podcast appearances and mentions of marty lederman

On Friday, Jan. 17, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the law which could effectively ban TikTok from operating in the United States, unless it is sold to a U.S. company. The case is the latest round in a legal battle involving free speech, national security, and the popular social media app, which is used by more than 170 million Americans. U.S. lawmakers argue that TikTok's ties to the Chinese government raise serious data protection and content manipulation concerns. Free speech advocates see the law as a fundamental afront to the First Amendment. How did the Supreme Court decide the case? And how might this decision impact future efforts to regulate social media companies with ties to foreign governments? Joining the show to discuss the Court's opinion and its implications are Marty Lederman, Asha Rangappa, and Xiangnong (George) Wang. Marty is an Executive Editor at Just Security and a Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He has served in senior roles at the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Counsel. Asha is an Editor at Just Security, a Senior Lecturer at Yale's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, and a former FBI Agent specializing in counterintelligence investigations. George is a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Show Notes:  Marty Lederman (Bluesky – X)Asha Rangappa (Bluesky – X) Xiangnong (George) Wang (Bluesky – LinkedIn)Paras Shah (LinkedIn – X)Just Security's U.S. Supreme Court coverageJust Security's TikTok coverageMusic: “Broken” by David Bullard from Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/david-bullard/broken (License code: OSC7K3LCPSGXISVI)

Just after midnight on Tuesday, Jan. 14, Special Counsel Jack Smith's office released its report on President-elect Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The report concludes that the evidence Smith obtained was sufficient to criminally convict Trump, but that after the 2024 election, the case could not move forward in light of Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.  While the report reveals relatively little new factual information around the events of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, it does explain Smith's rationale for his legal positions and key decisions. The report could also have implications for other criminal proceedings, including state-level cases against fake electors. What are the report's key take-aways and how might it add to the historical record? Joining the show to discuss the report are Tom Joscelyn and Marty Lederman. Tom is a Senior Fellow at Just Security. He was a senior professional staff member on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Marty is an Executive Editor at Just Security and a Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. He served in senior roles at the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Counsel.  Show Notes:  Paras Shah (LinkedIn – X)Tom Joscelyn (Bluesky – X) Marty Lederman (Bluesky – X)Tom's Just Security article with Ryan Goodman (Bluesky – LinkedIn) “3 Highlights in Special Counsel Jack Smith's Final Report on 2020 Election Subversion Case” Just Security's Trump Trials ClearinghouseJust Security's January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol coverageMusic: “Broken” by David Bullard from Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/david-bullard/broken (License code: OSC7K3LCPSGXISVI)

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Trump v. United States, finding that former presidents have “absolute immunity” for certain “official acts” taken while in office. The decision is a potentially sweeping expansion of presidential power and raises many questions, such as how to separate “official” and “unofficial” conduct in practice, and how it will impact the prosecutions against former President Donald Trump.  What are the opinion's key takeaways? How might Special Counsel Jack Smith respond to the decision? Joining the show to unpack the Court's landmark ruling, and what it means for presidential power and democracy, are leading legal experts Marty Lederman, Mary McCord, and Steve Vladeck. Just Security's Co-Editor-in-Chief, Ryan Goodman, co-hosted the discussion. Marty previously served in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel and is a Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. Mary is Executive Director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) and is a Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. She previously had a long career at the Department of Justice, as a federal prosecutor and later in leadership of the National Security Division. Steve is a Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, and he covers the Supreme Court both for CNN and through his Substack newsletter, “One First.” Marty, Mary, and Steve are all Editors at Just Security.  Show Notes: Marty Lederman (@marty_lederman)Mary B. McCordSteve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck)Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw)Paras Shah (@pshah518)Just Security's Trump Trials coverageJust Security's Supreme Court coverageMusic: “Broken” by David Bullard from Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/david-bullard/broken (License code: OSC7K3LCPSGXISVI)

Audio leaked by a White House official reveals the Biden administration discussing with a Department of Justice lawyer how to get around religious exemptions from the vaccine mandate. In the audio, first reported by Human Events editor Jack Posobiec, DOJ attorney Marty Lederman is heard advising the Biden administration on how to fight back against religious exemption claims. “For instance, in the New York case that's currently going on against the State of New York, the Thomas More Society is representing a bunch of doctors and nurses who claim that they would sin gravely in cooperation with the evil of abortion,” he began. “How would they be doing so? The claim is that all three of the current vaccines, either have fetal cells that were obtained by abortions in the vaccine itself, or in the case of Pfizer and Moderna that those vaccines were tested using fetal cells that had been aborted, and even the connection to the previous testing, makes them cooperative with evil in a way that their religion prohibits.” Lederman confessed that there's little Biden can legally do to circumvent religious exemption claims, even if they're “insincere.” “I don't want to say anything too categorical but I believe that this claim will be very difficult for agencies to successfully claim that's either insincere or not religious, even if it is,” he admitted. “Even if we know that many of those claims are not sincere, or are sincere but not religions, this is the most common behavior you're going to confront probably, and it's likely that you will have to take as a given the employee's claim.”  http://globalreportage.org/2021/10/20/leaked-white-house-call-shows-doj-lawyer-discussing-how-to-undercut-vaccine-religious-exemption-claims/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/global-reportage/support

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton's White House memoir, titled “The Room Where it Happened,” has made a lot of waves recently. Not only has Bolton faced criticism for publishing his account of his time in the Trump administration in a book rather than testifying in the president’s impeachment trial, but the Justice Department is now suing Bolton for publishing what it claims is classified information. So what is the government arguing? And, is Bolton’s book any good? On Friday, June 19, Quinta Jurecic discussed it all with Benjamin Wittes, Jack Goldsmith and Marty Lederman.

Following the release of the Mueller Report, much of the media and the public’s focus has been on potential obstruction of justice. Yet, argues Georgetown University’s Marty Lederman, more attention should be paid to whether President Trump’s conduct violated his Constitutional oath of office and undermined the counterintelligence investigation into Russian election interference. As Democrats continue debating whether to file articles of impeachment, Lederman joins Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang to discuss how the report transcends Mueller’s decision-making on obstruction of justice. Lederman was deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 2009 to 2010, and an attorney advisor in the OLC from 1994 to 2002.

On this week's episode of Versus Trump, Charlie, Jason, and Easha hit three topics: the mysterious case of the subpoena to a foreign corporation that may be related to the Mueller investigation; the nomination of William Barr as Attorney General; and the temporal nature of an emergency, as prompted by live listener feedback. The trio start by quickly discussing the mysterious subpoena case, and Easha gives us inside baseball on the usual process for securing a stay at the Supreme Court. The trio then comment quickly on Barr's nomination and his bizarre, unsolicited memo that reveals some of his thoughts about the Muller investigation. Finally, listener Ross Harrow (Jason's brother) comes into the Versus Trump studio and asks whether it's plausible that emergencies can really take a very long time to solve. You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at versustrumppodcast@gmail.com. You can buy t-shirts and other goods with our super-cool logo here. NotesEasha mentioned Marty Lederman's post on Just Security about the Barr memo. It's here.Charlie mentioned the Green Bag's writings on in-chambers opinions by single Supreme Court justices. See here, especially the introductory essays. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Here's your Thanksgiving Holiday episode, perfect for travel and your other holiday needs. If you listen only for law-related content, you'll probably want to skip to 01:17:16, where we somewhat casually discuss the controversy over whether the supposed Acting Attorney General was properly appointed. But we discuss many mailbag-related topics: the California fires and climate change (00:25), politeness and over-decorousness (8:53), how we imagine the mailbag and the miracles of pre-computer-age physical organization (11:06), how to find a good coffeeshop and the origins of "heyday" (22:15), our supposed bad taste in movies and our regard for certain consumer electronics (38:47), caselaw access and textbooks (55:44), seekers (59:44), markdown and word processing and the inevitable demise of Oral Argument (01:03:19), a discussion of the pretending Acting Attorney General and meltdowns and trainwrecks (01:17:16), podcast recommendations (01:33:30). Mary Beard's Ultimate Rome (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0797yqk) About Michael Mann (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Mann) About The Story of Star Wars LP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Star_Wars) Travis Bostick, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Mother!, and Sound Over Score (http://blogs.iac.gatech.edu/film2018/2018/02/12/johann-johannsson-mother-and-sound-over-score/) Caselaw Access Project (https://case.law); H2O (https://h2o.law.harvard.edu) About Markdown (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown) Oral Argument 11: Big Red Diesel (https://oralargument.org/11), on Markdown and word processors Ulysses (https://ulysses.app) and Byword (https://bywordapp.com) Bat Kid is cancer free (https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/1062860135662530560) Jed Shugerman, Whitaker’s Appointment as Acting Attorney General Is Statutorily Illegal (https://shugerblog.com/2018/11/09/whitakers-appointment-as-acting-attorney-general-is-statutorily-illegal/); Stephen Vladeck, Whitaker May Be a Bad Choice, but He’s a Legal One (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/opinion/trump-attorney-general-constitutional.html); Walter Dellinger and Marty Lederman, Initial Reactions to OLC’s Opinion on the Whitaker Designation as “Acting” Attorney General (https://www.justsecurity.org/61483/initial-reactions-olc-opinion-whitaker-designation-acting-attorney-general/) Podcasts: Bag Man (https://www.msnbc.com/bagman), Slow Burn (https://slate.com/slow-burn), Serial (https://serialpodcast.org) (and Oral Argument 44: Serial (https://oralargument.org/44)), Feeding Us (http://feedingus.libsyn.com), Ipse Dixit (https://shows.pippa.io/ipse-dixit)

Alex Aleinikoff speaks with Georgetown Law Professor Marty Lederman on the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the travel ban.

This week, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a gigantic report on the FBI's handling of the Clinton emails matter/investigation during the 2016 election cycle. On Friday, Benjamin Wittes got together with Quinta Jurecic, Lawfare's managing editor; Carrie Cordero, former Justice Department official and Lawfare contributor; and Marty Lederman of Just Security and the Georgetown Law School, to talk about the whole report.

Joe and Christian discuss submarine statutes, the essence of decisionmaking, and the problems of complexity and institutional fit. And we discuss some viewer mail: on partisan cooperation between levels of government, Joe’s lack of knitting diligence, and supercomputers. This show’s links: Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Partisan Federalism (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2291000); Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Unbundling Federalism: Colorado's Legalization of Marijuana and Federalism's Many Forms (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2366388) Christian Turner, Submarine Statutes (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2913641) Harlan F. Stone, The Common Law in the United States (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1333183?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) Marty Lederman, Why the Strikes Against Syria Probably Violate the U.N. Charter and (Therefore) the U.S. Constitution (https://www.justsecurity.org/39674/syrian-strikes-violate-u-n-charter-constitution/); Harold Koh, Not Illegal: But Now The Hard Part Begins (https://www.justsecurity.org/39695/illegal-hard-part-begins/); Marty Lederman, My Discrete but Important Disagreement with Harold Koh on the Lawfulness of the Strikes on Syria (https://www.justsecurity.org/39704/discrete-disagreement-harold-koh-lawfulness-strikes-syria/)

Steve Vladeck returns to the show to talk with us about Due Process and immigration, Trump’s Executive Order on Muslim immigration, and the role of courts in war and quasi-war. This show’s links: Steve Vladeck’s faculty profile (https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/siv245/) and writing (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=362455) The National Security Law Podcast (http://www.nationalsecuritylawpodcast.com) Steve Vladeck, The Supreme Court, the Trump Transition, and the Future of the Constitutional “Border” (https://www.justsecurity.org/36234/border/) (a concise overview of the Supreme Court cases under discussion, also contains links to SCOTUSblog pages where you can find briefs) The Immigration Executive Order (http://www.npr.org/2017/01/31/512439121/trumps-executive-order-on-immigration-annotated) with annotations by NPR reporters Steve Vladeck, The Airport Cases: What Happened, and What’s Next? (https://www.justsecurity.org/36960/stock-weekends-district-court-orders-immigration-eo/) Benjamin Wittes, Malevolence Tempered by Incompetence: Trump’s Horrifying Executive Order on Refugees and Visas (https://lawfareblog.com/malevolence-tempered-incompetence-trumps-horrifying-executive-order-refugees-and-visas) ACLU’s compendium of documents in Loughalam v. Trump (https://aclum.org/cases-briefs/louhghalam-v-trump/) (the Boston case) Tuaua v. United States (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14728241865713760068) Boumediene v. Bush (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2483936489630436485) Stephen Vladeck, The Suspension Clause as a Structural Right (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1020265) The Obama White House Report on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding the United States’ Use of Military Force and Related National Security Operations (https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/documents/Legal_Policy_Report.pdf); see also commentary from Marty Lederman (https://www.justsecurity.org/35239/president-obamas-report-legal-policy-frameworks-guiding-united-states-military-force-related-national-security-operations/) Al-Aulaqi v. Obama (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1758537122087571034) (against the targeting) and Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10730664581031404447) (Bivens claim) In re Territo (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=18125308868589836596) Lebron v. Rumsfeld (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10647104112426887557) (Wilkinson) and Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Tech. (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8123144860034346802) (the Abu Ghraib case) United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=10167007390100843851) David Frum, How to Build an Autocracy (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/how-to-build-an-autocracy/513872/) Special Guest: Steve Vladeck.

On Monday, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates ordered the Justice Department not to defend President Trump's executive order banning refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries, only to be quickly fired by Trump. Jack Goldsmith and Marty Lederman, who have both served in senior positions in the Office of Legal Counsel, penned responses—Jack criticizing Yates's actions and Marty defending them. We got them on the line for a special edition of the Lawfare Podcast. 

We are joined by budding media celebrity, Sonja West, who got her start on Episode 1 of Oral Argument. We again turn to the Hobby Lobby decision and the Supreme Court’s odd epilogue. With Sonja’s expert guidance we try to make sense of the web of religious liberty. Also, war on women or the century of gender equality? This show’s links: Sonja West’s faculty profile and writing Oral Argument 1: Send Joe to Prison, guest Sonja West Sonja West’s appearance on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores The full but brief text of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act Oral Argument 25: Normal Religions, in which we first discussed and set out the basics of the Hobby Lobby decision Wheaton College v. Burwell, granting a temporary injunction pending full appellate review Wheaton College, the one in Illinois, and its Statement of Faith and Educational Purpose Form 700 Dahlia Lithwick and Sonja West, Quick Change Justice: While You Were Sleeping, Hobby Lobby Just Got So Much Worse Marty Lederman, What Next in Wheaton College? Is It Also a “Win/Win” Compromise? University of Notre Dame v. Sebelius, Posner’s Seventh Circuit opinion on Notre Dame’s objections to filling out Form 700 Michael Dorf, Hobby Lobby Post-Mortem Part 2: The Wheaton College Stay Reprieve, Gitmo Detainees Demand Same Religious Rights as Hobby Lobby Employment Division v. Smith, the case that launched RFRA Boy Scouts of America v. Dale Dahlia Lithwick, After Hobby Lobby, Dahlia’s analysis of the gender divide evident in and exacerbated by the Supreme Court’s end-of-term decisions (posted after we recorded) Special Guest: Sonja West.