It’s a cliché now that the Justice Department should be independent of the president. Everyone says it—constantly. There’s just one problem. As a legal and constitutional matter, this “independent” Justice Department is a lot of nonsense. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 5: Independent Justice

What will be Donald Trump's lasting effects on American politics and the presidency?
Trump operated the presidency in ways that defied widely held assumptions about how a president might use and abuse the powers of the office. His mercurial personality, pathological mendacity, shamelessness, open disrespect for law and norms, vicious attacks on officials and institutions, intermingling of public and private interest, and indifference to facts did enormous damage to the great office that he assumed on January 20, 2017. And his words and actions exposed the presidency’s vulnerability to dangerous excesses of authority and dangerous weaknesses in accountability. Trump was not the first president to raise these dangers, obviously, but he did so unlike any of his predecessors.
Reconstructing the presidency will require much more than the right attitude by the president and senior executive branch officials. It will also require a comprehensive examination of the many fissures in the structure of the office that a future president might choose to exploit in a fashion similar to Trump.
Over six episodes, Host Virginia Heffernan, outlines with Lawfare's Jack Goldsmith &amp; former White House Counsel Bob Bauer outline their proposal of reform to our government in the fallout of the Trump Administration. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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A new series from Lawfare
After 20 years of war, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan ended in chaos at an airfield in Kabul. Thousands of Afghans who worked with the American soldiers as translators, interpreters and partners made it onto U.S. military planes. But despite the decades-long efforts of veterans, lawmakers and senior leaders in the military, even more were left behind. Now they live in hiding from the Taliban. 
From Lawfare and Goat Rodeo, this is Allies. A podcast about America’s eyes and ears over 20 years of war in Afghanistan. This show will take you from the frontlines of the war to the halls of Congress to find out: How did this happen? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lawfare Presents: Allies (new limited podcast series)

A new series from Goat Rodeo:
Many Americans watched the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 unfold right before our eyes. What happened on 9/11 and how it changed our world is the most important story of the modern age. It’s the hinge on which so much changed. But in the years since the history we've come to tell of that day is incomplete—and sometimes wrong.
Hosted by journalist Garrett Graff, author of the bestselling book THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: AN ORAL HISTORY OF 9/11, "Long Shadow" examines the questions that linger two decades later and the enduring mysteries that still surround 9/11, the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. This is a different history of September 11th than you likely remember. But it’s one that will help you make sense of the world the attacks left behind. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Goat Rodeo Presents: Long Shadow

We’ve taken you on a Dantean journey in this series, revisiting the damage done to the Republic by the presidency of Donald Trump. Other the last five episodes, we’ve chronicled how norms were shattered; loopholes exploited; and the constitution’s ambiguities laid bare. But Jack Goldsmith and Bob Bauer, whose book “After Trump” gives the series its name, have not just catalogued damage. They’ve laid down practical plans for reconstructing the presidency.
So the question now is, Can it be done?
In this final episode of After Trump, we look at the prospects for the future. We examine opportunities to fix the problems exposed by Donald Trump’s tenure as President. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 6: Getting It Done

In one sense maybe we should be thankful we’ve never had to grapple with these perplexing issues because a President has never run as wild as Trump did. But there’s a real precedent being set in the government’s approach to presidential criming.
It’s not just about Mueller or Trump or Biden or Merrick Garland. It’s about renovating the whole system to make plain when and how a president is held to account. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 5: Independent Justice

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