Podcast appearances and mentions of susan hennessey

From January 7, 2017: In an interview with The New York Times before his intelligence briefing on Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. election on Friday, President-elect Donald Trump called the intelligence community's assessment of Russian interference a "political witch hunt." In that spirit, Benjamin Wittes brought Lawfare managing editor Susan Hennessey and former GCHQ information security specialist Matt Tait on the podcast to discuss evidence of Russian attempts to influence the presidential election and Trump's baffling response.A quick note: This podcast was recorded before the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the intelligence community's report on Russian interference. Susan and Matt's firm belief that the hacking of Democratic Party information was carried out neither by a 14-year-old nor by a 400-pound person sitting on a bed, however, remains unshaken.Ben says he still suspects a 400-pound 14-year-old sitting on a bed—albeit a bed in Moscow at GRU headquarters.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.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From October 23, 2020: It's been a wild couple of days of disinformation in the electoral context. Intelligence community officials are warning about Russian and Iranian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election—and claiming that Iran is responsible for sending threatening emails from fake Proud Boys to Democratic voters. What exactly is going on here? To talk through the developments and the questions that linger, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Scott R. Anderson, Susan Hennessey and Quinta Jurecic.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From January 8, 2021: The storming of the Capitol on Wednesday was a catastrophic failure of protective law enforcement, as rioters overran Capitol Police barricades and gained access to a building that a lot of police were supposed to be protecting. How did it happen? Who screwed up? And what can be done about it? Benjamin Wittes sat down with Fred Burton, the executive director of the Center for Protective Intelligence at Ontic and a former protective officer; Garrett Graff, a journalist who covers federal law enforcement and who wrote a book about continuity in government; and Lawfare's executive editor Susan Hennessey. They talked about how bad the failure was on the part of the Capitol Police, who is responsible for it, what can be done now to bring the perpetrators to justice and how we should think about changing security protocols on Capitol Hill going forward.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/c/trumptrials.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carlos Lozada is currently an Opinion columnist at The New York Times, after spending nearly 20 years at The Washington Post - where he earned the Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for criticism as The Post's nonfiction book critic. He's also an author, with his second book -  The Washington Book - recently published: a collection of essays exploring what books by and about D.C. power players reveal about the people and political conflicts that define Washington. In this conversation, Carlos talks his path from Peru to South Bend to D.C., his accidental route to working in the press, some of his favorite Washington books and stories, and deeply mining his own insights into our current political moment.IN THIS EPISODECarlos' personal journey from Lima, Peru to Washington D.C...Carlos "gateway drug" books into the genre of Washington books...How Carlos defines what exactly is a "Washington Book"...Carlos weighs in on what he considers some of the earliest Washington Books...Carlos' rave  review of the U.S. Grant memoir...The place of All The President's Men in the pantheon of Washington Books...Carlos' favorite cliches from presidential campaign memoirs...The D.C. corridors of power that are undercovered in Washington Books...The Washington Books that are purely exercises in settling scores...Carlos compares the Donald Trump of 2016 to the Donald Trump of 2024...The Washington Books that never were that Carlos would love to read...What reading Vladimir Putin revealed to Carlos about the Russian leader...Carlos' 101 on sharp essay-writing...Carlos waxes nostalgic about the late Washinton Post Outlook Section...AND The 1619 Project, Alexis de Tocqueville, all sorts of minutia, Jody Allen, the American Enterprise Institute, Carol Anderson, animating impulses, The Appalachian Trail, Appomattox, asymmetric polarization, Peter Baker, Steve Bannon, Bob Barnett, beleaguered officials, Joe Biden, Joan Biskupic, Kate Boo, George H.W. Bush, Robert Caro, Jimmy Carter, Jesus Christ, Julie Davis, drop-down menus, enabling environments, farm foremen, The Federal Reserve, Craig Fehrman, Foreign Policy magazine, full absorption, Susan Glasser, Garret Graff, Lindsay Graham, Alan Greenspan, Stephanie Grisham, Maggie Haberman, Susan Hennessey, Fiona Hill, Dustin Hoffman, holy crap anecdotes, David Ignatius, joining-ness, Jurassic Park, Bob Kaiser, Ibram X. Kendi, the Kerner Commission, Adam Kushner, Robert E. Lee, Joe Lieberman, Steve Luxenberg, Thomas Mann, David Maraniss, Mark Meadows, mid-level authoritarian regimes, military duds, Mark Milley, Robert Moses, Robert Mueller, murdered darlings, murky institutions, The New York Review of Books, Kirstjen Nielsen, Notre Dame, Barack Obama, obligatory campaign memoirs, obscene crescendos, Norm Ornstein, parallel histories, the paralysis of power, George Pataki, Tim Pawlenty, policy wonks, John Pomfret, Robert Redford, Marco Rubio, Mark Sanford, Michael Schaffer, Brent Scowcroft, Michael Shear, silent Moscow, John Sununu, Barton Swaim, targeted excerpts, Mark Twain, Mario Vargas Llosa, velociraptors, Scott Walker, Ben Wittes, Michael Wolff, Bob Woodward...& more!

Who's your ideal American president? A strategic thinker who is calm in a crisis? A charmer with boundless aplomb? Perhaps a principled leader with an unwavering moral compass?This week, the hosts discuss what voters expect from “America's daddy” and whether concerns about President Biden's and Donald Trump's fitness are overblown, given the history of the office they each hope to keep or retake.(A full transcript of this audio essay will be available within 24 hours of publication in the audio player above.) Mentioned in this episode:“Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump's War on the World's Most Powerful Office,” by Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes“Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now,” by Evan Osnos Thoughts about the show? Email us at matterofopinion@nytimes.com.

From July 29, 2017: On December 31, 2017, Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act will sunset. While U.S. officials insist that the provision authorizes critical intelligence gathering, it remains an open question whether Congress will reauthorize the law as it exists, pass it with amendments, or allow it to lapse altogether. In this week's podcast, Susan Hennessey sits down with FBI General Counsel Jim Baker and the Bureau's Executive Assistant Director of the National Security Branch Carl Ghattas to discuss the FBI's perspective on the legal and operational elements of Section 702.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From December 23, 2017: As the year is coming to a close, Congress has now missed the deadline for reauthorizing FISA Section 702. Molly Reynolds, a Brookings fellow in Governance Studies and expert on Congress, joined Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey for a conversation on the failure to reauthorize and what happens next. They discussed the politics of Section 702, the influence of this year's overall legislative agenda, and what to expect in 2018 for the crucial intelligence apparatus.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From May 15, 2017: This afternoon, the Washington Post broke a major story: Donald Trump disclosed highly classified material to the Russian ambassador and Foreign Minister in the Oval Office last week, compromising a highly sensitive counterterrorism program run by an allied intelligence service. This evening, we got former DNI General Counsel Robert Litt on the line for a discussion with Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes of the latest mess. Litt helped coordinate and manage the intelligence community's response to the Edward Snowden revelations, so he knows a little something about responding to massive intelligence disclosures. They talked about how bad the disclosure may be, what the remedies for it are, and what we still don't know.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From November 18, 2020: In the waning days of his administration, the president has attempted to install a political loyalist as General Counsel of the National Security Agency, a position that is traditionally a merits position, not a political position. He has also issued an executive order that gives the executive branch greater control over the civil service, making it easier to hire and fire people in agencies. It all raises the question: Is Donald Trump attempting to create the very deep state that he has spent the last four years denouncing? To talk over this question in its various permutations, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Susan Hennessey, who recently wrote an article about the NSA General Counsel appointment; Scott Anderson, Lawfare senior editor; and Rudy Mehrbani, senior advisor at Democracy Fund Voice, senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, former assistant to the president and director of presidential personnel and former associate White House counsel in the Obama administration.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From June 11, 2019: More than two years after the 2016 presidential election, new information continues to seep into the public about the extent of Russia's sweeping and systematic efforts to interfere in the U.S. democratic process. With the 2020 presidential election on the horizon, last week, Stanford's Cyber Policy Center published a report on securing American elections, including recommendations on how the U.S. can protect elections and election infrastructure from foreign actors.On Monday, Susan Hennessey spoke with two of the report's authors: Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center's Internet Observatory and former Chief Security Officer of Facebook, and Nate Persily, Stanford law professor and expert on election administration. They talked about what happened in 2016, and the enormously complex landscape of defending not just election infrastructure but also preserving the integrity of the information ecosystems in which Americans make their decisions about how to vote, including the possible consequences of regulating foreign media.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From October 23, 2020: It's been a wild couple of days of disinformation in the electoral context. Intelligence community officials are warning about Russian and Iranian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election—and claiming that Iran is responsible for sending threatening emails from fake Proud Boys to Democratic voters. What exactly is going on here? To talk through the developments and the questions that linger, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Scott R. Anderson, Susan Hennessey and Quinta Jurecic.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From April 19, 2019: A redacted version of the 448-page Mueller report dropped yesterday, and there's a lot to say about it. In this Special Edition of the Lawfare Podcast, Bob Bauer, Susan Hennessey, Mary McCord, Paul Rosenzweig, Charlie Savage and Benjamin Wittes discuss what the report says about obstruction and collusion, Mueller's legal theories and what this all means for the president and the presidency.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From December 7, 2019: Wargaming has long been a staple of military strategizing, but how do we plan for the future in cyberspace, a realm where governments do not hold a monopoly on capabilities? A new report from the Atlantic Council argues that "visualizing and describing the evolution of cyber capabilities and strategic competition require envisioning multiple futures," and the report sets out to do exactly that. This week, Lawfare's Susan Hennessey sat down with John Watts, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, and JD Work, the Bren Chair for Cyber Conflict and Security at the Marine Corps University, who are authors of "Alternate Cybersecurity Futures," along with Nina Kollars, Ben Jensen, and Chris Whyte. They talked about the behind-the-scenes of strategic policy planning, the value of creativity, and what scenarios emerge when you ask cybersecurity experts to predict the future.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From September 30, 2020: On Sunday, September 27, the New York Times dropped bombshell new reporting on nearly two decades of Donald Trump's tax return data. The story has attracted enormous attention and paints a dismal picture. Donald Trump paid no personal income taxes for 11 of the past 18 years, he uses tax deductions aggressively, and last year he paid only $750 in federal income tax. So, is this a story of a president merely in massive debt, or is there something more sinister at play? To whom does the president owe all this money? And what are the national security risks of the president being in this sort of financial position? To try to break it all down, Susan Hennessey sat down with Margaret Taylor, formerly a fellow at Brookings and senior editor at Lawfare; Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and the author of "The Toddler in Chief: What Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency"; and Adam Davidson, a contributing writer to The New Yorker who has written extensively on Trump's financial entanglements.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From March 6, 2019: Susan Hennessey interviewed FBI Director Chris Wray at the 2019 RSA Conference. They discussed how the Director views the cyber threat landscape 18 months into his term, his concerns about the threats posed by Russia and China, what the FBI is doing to protect the 2020 elections, and more.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From March 25, 2017: Between leading the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's first open hearing on Russian election interference on Monday, and sparring with HPSCI Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes over Nunes's odd escapades regarding possible incidental collection of communications of Trump associates, HPSCI Ranking Member Rep. Adam Schiff has had a busy week. On Tuesday, Lawfare and the Brookings Institution were pleased to host Rep. Schiff for an address on "The Role of Congress in Protecting Liberal Democracy." In conversation with Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey, Rep. Schiff spelled out an ambitious legislative program and a vision for revitalizing the power of Congress under the Trump presidency.If you're interested in reading Rep. Schiff's remarks, Lawfare has published them here in article form.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From October 7, 2017: Last month, Lawfare and Foreign Policy hosted an event on lawyering for the Trump presidency. Susan Hennessey spoke with former White House Counsels Bob Bauer, who served in the Obama administration from 2010 to 2011, and A.B. Culvahouse, who served in the Reagan administration from 1987 to 1989, in a lively discussion on providing legal support when your client is the president. They talked about the distinction between a president's personal counsel and White House counsel, the challenges of defending a president during an investigation, and the quotidian aspects of the role of the White House Counsel.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Is there a criminal investigation going on involving the lab-leak? Was it a bio-weapon? Do not miss this show.  News Picks: Is there a coverup going on with the lab leak theory? Former CDC Director getting death threats for speaking out about the lab leak theory. Susan Hennessey does not belong in the Department of Justice.  This UFO story is stunning.  The mass exodus from liberal California continues. Copyright Bongino Inc All Rights Reserved.

Photo: Two cartoons showing politicians trying to buy votes.Illus. in: Harper's weekly, v. 1, 1857 Nov. 7, p. 713..CBS Eye on the World with John BatchelorCBS Audio Network@BatchelorshowSusan Hennessey and Liz Cheney carry on battling 2016 and 2020. @AndrewCMcCarthy @NRO https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/on-susan-hennessey-the-problem-is-the-appointer-not-the-appointee/https://www.jns.org/opinion/what-cias-john-brennan-teaches-about-mainstreaming-anti-semitism/https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/the-wrong-answer-to-cheneys-anti-trump/

Joe Biden’s latest hire was a huge supporter of this deep-state scandal. In this episode, I discuss the disturbing connections between these major figures in the Biden administration, and these fake Trump scandals.  News Picks: Ex-Intell officials suspiciously silent after they got caught promoting a hoax. Susan Hennessey has a long history of promoting ridiculous conspiracy theories. Another collusion-hoaxer gets a sweet appointment in the Biden administration. More on that George Soros connection.  “Woke” Hollywood continues to eat itself alive. Copyright Bongino Inc All Rights Reserved.

A weekly discussion of national security and foreign policy matters hosted by Shane Harris of the Washington Post and featuring Brookings senior fellows Susan Hennessey, Tamara Cofman Wittes, and Benjamin Wittes. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What a day... Karen and Steve recap the big news (their older daughter's fifth birthday), and the even bigger news (President Biden's inauguration), before tackling some listener e-mail about whether they have any plans to move back to the "Northeast" (the geographic scope of which provoked ... some disagreement). After that, they chat with Lawfare Executive Editor and superstar legal analyst Susan Hennessey about everything from the shift from Trump to Biden to the unique challenges of parenting when the parents' jobs are in different states.

Donald Trump is headed for a second impeachment, a whole lot of people have been charged in federal and local courts in Washington, and an even larger number are probably about to be. What's more, the president's social media accounts have vanished; in fact, one of the very networks on which the president's supporters organized has itself disappeared. To talk through it all, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare's Alan Rozenshtein, Bryce Klehm, David Priess, Quinta Jurecic and Susan Hennessey. They talked about whether impeachment is inevitable now, if the article of impeachment Congress is considering is well-crafted, who has been charged and who is going to be charged, and what we should make of the actions of the tech companies against the president and his allies.

Podcast: The Lawfare Podcast (LS 70 · TOP 0.05% what is this?)Episode: Who Let the Barbarians Through the Gates?Pub date: 2021-01-08The storming of the Capitol on Wednesday was a catastrophic failure of protective law enforcement, as rioters overran Capitol Police barricades and gained access to a building that a lot of police were supposed to be protecting. How did it happen? Who screwed up? And what can be done about it? Benjamin Wittes sat down with Fred Burton, the executive director of the Center for Protective Intelligence at Ontic and a former protective officer; Garrett Graff, a journalist who covers federal law enforcement and who wrote a book about continuity in government; and Lawfare's executive editor Susan Hennessey. They talked about how bad the failure was on the part of the Capitol Police, who is responsible for it, what can be done now to bring the perpetrators to justice and how we should think about changing security protocols on Capitol Hill going forward.The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

The storming of the Capitol on Wednesday was a catastrophic failure of protective law enforcement, as rioters overran Capitol Police barricades and gained access to a building that a lot of police were supposed to be protecting. How did it happen? Who screwed up? And what can be done about it? Benjamin Wittes sat down with Fred Burton, the executive director of the Center for Protective Intelligence at Ontic and a former protective officer; Garrett Graff, a journalist who covers federal law enforcement and who wrote a book about continuity in government; and Lawfare's executive editor Susan Hennessey. They talked about how bad the failure was on the part of the Capitol Police, who is responsible for it, what can be done now to bring the perpetrators to justice and how we should think about changing security protocols on Capitol Hill going forward.

It is the last podcast of the year, and we are giving 2020 an appropriate send-off. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Lawfare executive editor Susan Hennessey, managing editor Quinta Jurecic, senior editor Scott Anderson, and Lawfare contributor and law professor Alan Rozenshtein to talk about the worst stories of the year, as well as their expectations and predictions for the coming year.

It's the end of the year, and that means we opened the phones for the annual "Ask Us Anything" edition. You called in with your questions, which we routed to Lawfare contributors for their answers. Benjamin Wittes, Molly Reynolds, Steve Vladeck, David Priess, Susan Hennessey, Scott Anderson, Judd Devermont and Rohini Kurup responded to questions on everything from pardons to prosecuting contractors to ethnic diversity at Lawfare. Thank you for your questions. And as always, thank you for listening.

Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, two attorneys who have worked, respectively, in the Barack Obama and the George W. Bush Administrations, have written a blueprint of considerations to reform and revise aspects of the Executive Branch and the presidency. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (Lawfair Press, 2020) joins a number of recent books—among them Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes' Unmaking the Presidency, Stephen F. Knott's The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, Lara M. Brown's Amateur Hour—that assess the American Presidency, pointing out weaknesses in the structure of the office and the means to hold presidents accountable for their actions and decisions while in office. Bauer and Goldsmith come to their analysis from their perspectives and experiences working as attorneys at the highest levels of the Executive Branch and the presidency. They use these experiences to examine what they have seen transpire over the past four years of the Trump Administration, and the abuses of the office itself and aspects of the Executive Branch, particularly with regard to the Justice Department. This book looks at the institution of the presidency, while also exploring the way that Congress and the Courts work in relation to the Executive, providing a fairly comprehensive road map for reforms that can be done by a number of different political actors, including the next president. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency really is a map or blueprint, outlining particular problems or controversial behavior by President Donald Trump and members of the Administration and/or Executive Office of the President staff, examining previous examples of the same kind of problems or behaviors, and then offering proposals for reform or revision that would address the problems or behaviors. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency is divided into three sections, each section has particular focal points with regard to the presidency. Part one of the book focuses specifically on the president and advances proposals that, in many cases, would institutionalize and legalize norms that had been in place and adhered to by previous presidents, but not by President Trump. The second section, which is quite extensive, spotlights the relationship between the president and the Department of Justice. This part of the book proposes reforms that aim to keep the Justice Department independent of presidential interference and allows the Department to function and use its extraordinary tools and law enforcement capacities in a way that is free from corruption or inappropriate influence. The third part of the book is also the most difficult part in terms of reforms, since this section of the book treads into the area of presidential power that is long standing, and historically the realm of the Executive in the constitutional system. Bauer and Goldsmith note that they are committed to the idea of a powerful president, in line with Alexander Hamilton's argument for an energetic executive in Federalist #70. But they also note that the president needs to be constitutionally accountable, thus their book aims at reforms that will institutionalize some of the guardrails that would contribute to more accountability without weakening the president or the presidency. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award-winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, two attorneys who have worked, respectively, in the Barack Obama and the George W. Bush Administrations, have written a blueprint of considerations to reform and revise aspects of the Executive Branch and the presidency. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (Lawfair Press, 2020) joins a number of recent books—among them Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes’ Unmaking the Presidency, Stephen F. Knott’s The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, Lara M. Brown’s Amateur Hour—that assess the American Presidency, pointing out weaknesses in the structure of the office and the means to hold presidents accountable for their actions and decisions while in office. Bauer and Goldsmith come to their analysis from their perspectives and experiences working as attorneys at the highest levels of the Executive Branch and the presidency. They use these experiences to examine what they have seen transpire over the past four years of the Trump Administration, and the abuses of the office itself and aspects of the Executive Branch, particularly with regard to the Justice Department. This book looks at the institution of the presidency, while also exploring the way that Congress and the Courts work in relation to the Executive, providing a fairly comprehensive road map for reforms that can be done by a number of different political actors, including the next president. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency really is a map or blueprint, outlining particular problems or controversial behavior by President Donald Trump and members of the Administration and/or Executive Office of the President staff, examining previous examples of the same kind of problems or behaviors, and then offering proposals for reform or revision that would address the problems or behaviors. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency is divided into three sections, each section has particular focal points with regard to the presidency. Part one of the book focuses specifically on the president and advances proposals that, in many cases, would institutionalize and legalize norms that had been in place and adhered to by previous presidents, but not by President Trump. The second section, which is quite extensive, spotlights the relationship between the president and the Department of Justice. This part of the book proposes reforms that aim to keep the Justice Department independent of presidential interference and allows the Department to function and use its extraordinary tools and law enforcement capacities in a way that is free from corruption or inappropriate influence. The third part of the book is also the most difficult part in terms of reforms, since this section of the book treads into the area of presidential power that is long standing, and historically the realm of the Executive in the constitutional system. Bauer and Goldsmith note that they are committed to the idea of a powerful president, in line with Alexander Hamilton’s argument for an energetic executive in Federalist #70. But they also note that the president needs to be constitutionally accountable, thus their book aims at reforms that will institutionalize some of the guardrails that would contribute to more accountability without weakening the president or the presidency. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award-winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, two attorneys who have worked, respectively, in the Barack Obama and the George W. Bush Administrations, have written a blueprint of considerations to reform and revise aspects of the Executive Branch and the presidency. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (Lawfair Press, 2020) joins a number of recent books—among them Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes’ Unmaking the Presidency, Stephen F. Knott’s The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, Lara M. Brown’s Amateur Hour—that assess the American Presidency, pointing out weaknesses in the structure of the office and the means to hold presidents accountable for their actions and decisions while in office. Bauer and Goldsmith come to their analysis from their perspectives and experiences working as attorneys at the highest levels of the Executive Branch and the presidency. They use these experiences to examine what they have seen transpire over the past four years of the Trump Administration, and the abuses of the office itself and aspects of the Executive Branch, particularly with regard to the Justice Department. This book looks at the institution of the presidency, while also exploring the way that Congress and the Courts work in relation to the Executive, providing a fairly comprehensive road map for reforms that can be done by a number of different political actors, including the next president. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency really is a map or blueprint, outlining particular problems or controversial behavior by President Donald Trump and members of the Administration and/or Executive Office of the President staff, examining previous examples of the same kind of problems or behaviors, and then offering proposals for reform or revision that would address the problems or behaviors. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency is divided into three sections, each section has particular focal points with regard to the presidency. Part one of the book focuses specifically on the president and advances proposals that, in many cases, would institutionalize and legalize norms that had been in place and adhered to by previous presidents, but not by President Trump. The second section, which is quite extensive, spotlights the relationship between the president and the Department of Justice. This part of the book proposes reforms that aim to keep the Justice Department independent of presidential interference and allows the Department to function and use its extraordinary tools and law enforcement capacities in a way that is free from corruption or inappropriate influence. The third part of the book is also the most difficult part in terms of reforms, since this section of the book treads into the area of presidential power that is long standing, and historically the realm of the Executive in the constitutional system. Bauer and Goldsmith note that they are committed to the idea of a powerful president, in line with Alexander Hamilton’s argument for an energetic executive in Federalist #70. But they also note that the president needs to be constitutionally accountable, thus their book aims at reforms that will institutionalize some of the guardrails that would contribute to more accountability without weakening the president or the presidency. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award-winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, two attorneys who have worked, respectively, in the Barack Obama and the George W. Bush Administrations, have written a blueprint of considerations to reform and revise aspects of the Executive Branch and the presidency. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (Lawfair Press, 2020) joins a number of recent books—among them Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes’ Unmaking the Presidency, Stephen F. Knott’s The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, Lara M. Brown’s Amateur Hour—that assess the American Presidency, pointing out weaknesses in the structure of the office and the means to hold presidents accountable for their actions and decisions while in office. Bauer and Goldsmith come to their analysis from their perspectives and experiences working as attorneys at the highest levels of the Executive Branch and the presidency. They use these experiences to examine what they have seen transpire over the past four years of the Trump Administration, and the abuses of the office itself and aspects of the Executive Branch, particularly with regard to the Justice Department. This book looks at the institution of the presidency, while also exploring the way that Congress and the Courts work in relation to the Executive, providing a fairly comprehensive road map for reforms that can be done by a number of different political actors, including the next president. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency really is a map or blueprint, outlining particular problems or controversial behavior by President Donald Trump and members of the Administration and/or Executive Office of the President staff, examining previous examples of the same kind of problems or behaviors, and then offering proposals for reform or revision that would address the problems or behaviors. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency is divided into three sections, each section has particular focal points with regard to the presidency. Part one of the book focuses specifically on the president and advances proposals that, in many cases, would institutionalize and legalize norms that had been in place and adhered to by previous presidents, but not by President Trump. The second section, which is quite extensive, spotlights the relationship between the president and the Department of Justice. This part of the book proposes reforms that aim to keep the Justice Department independent of presidential interference and allows the Department to function and use its extraordinary tools and law enforcement capacities in a way that is free from corruption or inappropriate influence. The third part of the book is also the most difficult part in terms of reforms, since this section of the book treads into the area of presidential power that is long standing, and historically the realm of the Executive in the constitutional system. Bauer and Goldsmith note that they are committed to the idea of a powerful president, in line with Alexander Hamilton’s argument for an energetic executive in Federalist #70. But they also note that the president needs to be constitutionally accountable, thus their book aims at reforms that will institutionalize some of the guardrails that would contribute to more accountability without weakening the president or the presidency. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award-winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith, two attorneys who have worked, respectively, in the Barack Obama and the George W. Bush Administrations, have written a blueprint of considerations to reform and revise aspects of the Executive Branch and the presidency. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency (Lawfair Press, 2020) joins a number of recent books—among them Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes’ Unmaking the Presidency, Stephen F. Knott’s The Lost Soul of the American Presidency, Lara M. Brown’s Amateur Hour—that assess the American Presidency, pointing out weaknesses in the structure of the office and the means to hold presidents accountable for their actions and decisions while in office. Bauer and Goldsmith come to their analysis from their perspectives and experiences working as attorneys at the highest levels of the Executive Branch and the presidency. They use these experiences to examine what they have seen transpire over the past four years of the Trump Administration, and the abuses of the office itself and aspects of the Executive Branch, particularly with regard to the Justice Department. This book looks at the institution of the presidency, while also exploring the way that Congress and the Courts work in relation to the Executive, providing a fairly comprehensive road map for reforms that can be done by a number of different political actors, including the next president. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency really is a map or blueprint, outlining particular problems or controversial behavior by President Donald Trump and members of the Administration and/or Executive Office of the President staff, examining previous examples of the same kind of problems or behaviors, and then offering proposals for reform or revision that would address the problems or behaviors. After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency is divided into three sections, each section has particular focal points with regard to the presidency. Part one of the book focuses specifically on the president and advances proposals that, in many cases, would institutionalize and legalize norms that had been in place and adhered to by previous presidents, but not by President Trump. The second section, which is quite extensive, spotlights the relationship between the president and the Department of Justice. This part of the book proposes reforms that aim to keep the Justice Department independent of presidential interference and allows the Department to function and use its extraordinary tools and law enforcement capacities in a way that is free from corruption or inappropriate influence. The third part of the book is also the most difficult part in terms of reforms, since this section of the book treads into the area of presidential power that is long standing, and historically the realm of the Executive in the constitutional system. Bauer and Goldsmith note that they are committed to the idea of a powerful president, in line with Alexander Hamilton’s argument for an energetic executive in Federalist #70. But they also note that the president needs to be constitutionally accountable, thus their book aims at reforms that will institutionalize some of the guardrails that would contribute to more accountability without weakening the president or the presidency. Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award-winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the waning days of his administration, the president has attempted to install a political loyalist as General Counsel of the National Security Agency, a position that is traditionally a merits position, not a political position. He has also issued an executive order that gives the executive branch greater control over the civil service, making it easier to hire and fire people in agencies. It all raises the question: Is Donald Trump attempting to create the very deep state that he has spent the last four years denouncing? To talk over this question in its various permutations, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Susan Hennessey, who recently wrote an article about the NSA General Counsel appointment; Scott Anderson, Lawfare senior editor; and Rudy Mehrbani, senior advisor at Democracy Fund Voice, senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, and former assistant to the president and director of presidential personnel and former associate White House counsel in the Obama administration.

Yesterday, President Trump fired Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the latest in a string of dismissals. Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is trying to put a transition together, but the head of the General Services Administration will not ascertain that the transition has begun. To talk about it all, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Steve Vladeck, Susan Hennessey and Scott R. Anderson. They discussed the president's surprise—or not so surprising—removal of staff who have offended him, how you run a transition, what the law requires, why the GSA won't get this one started, how you staff an administration and the particular challenges Biden will face.

Well, that's it, folks. We have a president elect in Joe Biden. And, we have a president who is now officially a lame duck. To talk through the transition from Donald Trump to a more normal presidency, Benjamin Wittes spoke with Scott R. Anderson, Quinta Jurecic, Jacob Schulz and Susan Hennessey.

Benjamin Wittes sat down with an all-Lawfare crew to discuss the election. Scott Anderson, David Priess, Jacob Schulz, Quinta Jurecic and Susan Hennessey joined Ben to talk about where the election is, whether we are in a transition or in a contested election, the challenges a Biden transition team might face and what concerns the team finds particularly alarming as they imagine the next few weeks and months.

This month, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence's Subcommittee on Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research released a report entitled, "Rightly Scaled, Carefully Open, Infinitely Agile: Reconfiguring to Win the Innovation Race in the Intelligence Community." Susan Hennessey sat down with Subcommittee Chair Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut to discuss the challenges the United States is facing with near-peer national competitors in science and technology and the impact on the intelligence community. They talked about the role of China, stemming intelligence community brain drain, the need for basic research and how Congress can heal itself to become part of the solution.

It's been a wild couple of days of disinformation in the electoral context. Intelligence community officials are warning about Russian and Iranian efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election—and claiming that Iran is responsible for sending threatening emails from fake Proud Boys to Democratic voters. What exactly is going on here? To talk through the developments and the questions that linger, Benjamin Wittes sat down with Scott R. Anderson, Susan Hennessey and Quinta Jurecic.

Wisconsin just pulled more than 100,000 mostly minority voters off the rolls- and Greg Palast has caught them red-handed. Can something be done in time for November, or could Jim Crow Wisconsin hand Trump the election?Plus - Is Donald Trump running against Joe Biden or against a Democratic America?- will the Democrats be able to capture the misplaced anger of the working class?Was Trump Involved In Bolivia's Coup? Thom checks in with Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.

On Sunday, September 27, the New York Times dropped bombshell new reporting on nearly two decades of Donald Trump's tax return data. The story has attracted enormous attention and paints a dismal picture. Donald Trump paid no personal income taxes for 11 of the past 18 years, he uses tax deductions aggressively, and last year he paid only $750 in federal income tax. So, is this a story of a president merely in massive debt, or is there something more sinister at play? To whom does the president owe all this money? And what are the national security risks of the president being in this sort of financial position? To try to break it all down, Susan Hennessey sat down with Margaret Taylor, a fellow at Brookings and senior editor at Lawfare; Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and the author of "The Toddler in Chief: What Donald Trump Teaches Us about the Modern Presidency"; and Adam Davidson, a contributing writer to The New Yorker who has written extensively on Trump's financial entanglements.

At last, a little over a month before the US general election Nov. 3, the public is getting a glimpse into President Donald Trump's taxes.The New York Times acquired more than two decades' worth of tax records that the president has refused to make public. They paint a picture of a businessman who took extraordinary measures to avoid paying taxes and also incurred huge financial losses.One striking takeaway: Trump paid just $750 in federal income tax in 2016, the year he was elected president. Another finding in the documents: Trump had his hands on a lot of foreign money.To understand the national security implications of Trump's tax returns, The World's host Marco Werman spoke to Susan Hennessey, the executive editor of the blog Lawfare and a senior fellow in national security in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. She’s the co-author of "Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump's War on the World's Most Powerful Office" and was previously an attorney at the National Security Agency. Related: Retired army commander: US institutions 'will ensure a peaceful transition of power'Marco Werman: What do you find most striking in the new disclosures? Susan Hennessey: The fact that the president of the United States owes somewhere between $300 and $400 million in debt, that is going to come payable over the next four years, that mere fact alone, raises really, really serious questions about who the president owes money to, and whether or not those debts, when they finally come due, might ultimately induce or influence the president to do some things that are more in his personal financial interest than in the interests of the United States. And I really think the way to think about that is as a national security issue. Right, it's not just the amount, but to whom some of this $400 million is owed. Who do we think he owes money to? We have to be careful in how much we can infer from the reporting about these tax returns. Tax returns are not comprehensive financial disclosures. That said, these documents do strongly suggest that the president owes a significant amount of money to foreign banks, foreign companies or foreign governments. So, we see the amount of money that Donald Trump has paid in taxes to foreign countries. He's paid more to the Philippines, to Turkey, to India in the first year of his presidency than he actually paid in federal income tax to the United States government. That certainly strongly suggests the degree of entanglement with foreign interests in particular, also with countries that have quite sensitive business with the United States. I think these documents raise really serious questions. They don't provide comprehensive answers, at least not yet, based on what the public has been able to see. So, we know that Trump had been doing business with Georgians, Kazakhs. There are, of course, the golf courses in Scotland. Could those be places where the debt is being held? And why do the documents not show to whom the money is owed? Yes, it certainly could. All these could be sources where this debt is held, and we would imagine that there are likely multiple sources considering the sheer scope and size of the debt. And again, we aren't just concerned about who specifically the president might owe money to, but also whether or not the existence of the debt might offer other avenues in which to influence him. The way we think about this is a foreign government or foreign country being able to provide a thing of value to the president of the United States. The framers of the Constitution actually explicitly forbade that in dual emoluments clauses. And so, these really are sort of core, national interests of the United States. Related: Never before have threats to US democracy been so grave, says political scientistSo, the emoluments clause was one check the framers established to avoid foreign entanglements for the occupants of the White House. Why are checks like that not working now? The framers of the Constitution really knew that they had to guard against this idea of corruption or else the entire system itself would crumble. Our system really, really depends on the legitimacy of public officials who are working for the public good and not for private gain. They talk a lot about the need to separate the love of power and love of money, as Benjamin Franklin puts it. And so, in part, they do this by creating structural separation of powers. They do this through these emoluments clauses. And this is because they really, really don't want the president being bought off or influenced by foreign governments or by individual states. It's also the reason why the framers insisted the president of the United States accept a salary. They wanted the president to be an employee of the United States, to be deriving his source of income only from his job as a public official because of this really, really fundamental concern of outside interests, sort of working to influence the president's thinking, considering the really astonishing amount of power and authority that the American system vests in the American executive. What are you waiting to see happens next with this whole situation, with tax returns and the indebtedness? The mere fact that we do not know the amount of money that the president might owe to foreign governments or foreign interests, that itself is a national security risk. That itself is a national security threat to the United States. And so, I think the immediate question is to what extent are the public — the American electorate and American voters — going to decide that this is not a risk that we can continue to take moving forward and to express that in who they vote for this election? Speaking of risks, if President Trump wasn't in the Oval Office but still had the sort of debt, taxes and financial peril reflected in these tax documents, would he pass a security clearance? I think unquestionably no. A lot of people have speculated on whether or not these tax returns, in combination with other financial disclosures, reveal some kind of criminal misconduct. We don't know the answer to that. That said, in the security clearance process in the United States for individuals who hold these sensitive clearances, access to classified information, the issue of debt, the issue of any kind of financial stress or strain and very, very specific examination of sources of money is central to that process. I find it really, really difficult, if not impossible, to believe that somebody who had this kind of exposure that is shown in these documents could, in fact, obtain a security clearance. The president of the United States does not obtain a security clearance. He is vested by certificate of election. That said, this also raises really serious questions about his children, who the president has brought into the White House and has reportedly exerted some political and very unusual influence over the security clearance process in order to grant those security clearances to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner over the objections of career officials. This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has released the final counterintelligence volume of its extensive report related to many aspects of the Russian information warfare and influence campaign surrounding the 2016 election. To dissect it, David Priess sat down with Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes, Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic and Margaret Taylor. They discussed what's in this report, how it relates to the Mueller report and what actions, if any, it will spur from its hard-hitting findings.

There is one and only one major hoax associated with the relationship between Donald Trump and the Russian government during the 2016 elections. That's the hoax hoax, Trump's denials that he worked with Russian intelligence to get elected. This week's report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence should finally set that hoax to rest. The bipartisan report not only documents in detail how closely Team Trump worked with the GRU, it also detailed many of the ways they sought to obstruct justice, hide evidence and impede investigators. We discuss the report with four experts: Natasha Bertrand of Politico, Michael Weiss of The Daily Beast, Josh Campbell of CNN and Susan Hennessey of Lawfare. And then, while we're at it, we discuss what the Russians are up to now since 2016 was such a big success for them. Don't miss it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There is one and only one major hoax associated with the relationship between Donald Trump and the Russian government during the 2016 elections. That's the hoax hoax, Trump's denials that he worked with Russian intelligence to get elected. This week's report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence should finally set that hoax to rest. The bipartisan report not only documents in detail how closely Team Trump worked with the GRU, it also detailed many of the ways they sought to obstruct justice, hide evidence and impede investigators. We discuss the report with four experts: Natasha Bertrand of Politico, Michael Weiss of The Daily Beast, Josh Campbell of CNN and Susan Hennessey of Lawfare. And then, while we're at it, we discuss what the Russians are up to now since 2016 was such a big success for them. Don't miss it.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/deepstateradio. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The New York Times and Washington Post both report that a Russian intelligence unit is paying bounties to Taliban-affiliated militants for killing coalition, including U.S., soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan. The White House denies that the president has been briefed on the subject, although the newspapers report that the White House was alerted to it and didn't do anything about it. Congress is asking questions, and Trump's critics are certain that this is the latest example of the president bowing before Vladimir Putin. Benjamin Wittes spoke with Scott Anderson, Susan Hennessey and David Priess of Lawfare, and Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis, about how solid the intelligence is, what we can say about the president's knowledge—or lack thereof—of the situation, and why Russia would want to do this in the first place.

Deterrence is not failing in Asia, America is.  A little advice about how NOT to network in Washington.  What's more dangerous, the Sino-Indian conflict or North Korea?  Also this episode: how international relations theory can be used in practice, and why China hawks are actually Trump's useful idiots.Susan Hennessy Tweet: https://twitter.com/Susan_Hennessey/status/1273392725937790979?s=20Rachel Rizzo Tweet: https://twitter.com/RachelRizzo/status/1271416729424535552Matt Duss Tweet: ttps://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1273356008337870854Contributors: Gaby Magnuson, Pete McKenzie, Jake Dellow, Ciara Mitchell

How Donald Trump is transforming fundamental ideas about what it means to be president. Diane talks to Lawfare's Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes about their new book, "Unmaking the Presidency."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces formal impeachment inquiry but doesn't look like she has the votes. Why does CNN have so many deep state analysts including Susan Hennessey, and is there a conflict of interest there? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dankingston/message

First, Chris goes one on one with Representative Sean Patrick Maloney to discuss President Trump's reaction to the Mueller Report in which he called it "treason." Then, Chris heads to the Magic Wall to compare Attorney General Bill Barr's summary of the Mueller Report to the redacted version that was released. Next, Chris holds a session of "Cuomo's Court," with Ryan Goodman, Susan Hennessey, and Phil Mudd. Chris wraps up the show with Former Tallahassee Mayor, Andrew Gillum and a Closing Argument on focusing on the timing of the Mueller Report's release.To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

First, Chris goes one on one with Representative Sean Patrick Maloney to discuss President Trump's reaction to the Mueller Report in which he called it "treason." Then, Chris heads to the Magic Wall to compare Attorney General Bill Barr's summary of the Mueller Report to the redacted version that was released. Next, Chris holds a session of "Cuomo's Court," with Ryan Goodman, Susan Hennessey, and Phil Mudd. Chris wraps up the show with Former Tallahassee Mayor, Andrew Gillum and a Closing Argument on focusing on the timing of the Mueller Report's release.To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy