The Trump-ordered drone killing of Qasem Soleimni, Iran’s second ranking political official, raises profound and exquisitely difficult questions of legality under international law and the federal constitution’s war power clauses. A spectacular panel of war powers experts-- Harvard Professor Jack Goldsmith, New York Times Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Charlie Savage, and University of Texas Professor Steve Vladeck --join Harry to grapple with these questions.
Ignorance is Strength: Trump’s War on Fact
In the wake of the impeachment trial, the President has gone into overdrive seeking to root out from government anyone seen as personally disloyal, including those who provide truthful information pursuant to legal duty. At the same time, he seems obsessed with trying to scrub away any facts that might reflect poorly on him. Feds Frank Figliuzzi, Matt Miller, and Sam Vinograd analyze the President’s mad assaults in the context of the Stone sentencing and the ouster of Joseph Maguire.
Stone Cold Disaster at DOJ
The Feds convene inside the LA office of Congressman Ted Lieu, a critical figure in the impeachment effort from his post on the House Judiciary Committee, at the end of a week of scandal and tumult at the DOJ. Congressman Lieu, former AUSA Prof. Laurie Levenson, and Atlantic writer Todd Purdum join Harry to discuss the cross currents of DOJ conduct, which ended the week with a Barr interview pushing back on Trump’s tweets and the announcement that Trump enemy Andy McCabe would not be prosecuted.
Has the Presidency Grown Too Powerful for the Constitution?
Notwithstanding serious misconduct by President Trump of the sort that impeachment and removal seemed designed to address, there never was a serious prospect that the Senate would convict him. What went wrong? Scholars and former government officials Bob Bauer, Rick Pildes, and Kate Shaw join Harry to discuss how Supreme Court decisions, executive branch aggrandizement, congressional acquiescence, and social and political forces have sapped impeachment of the strength the Framers intended.
Read the full episode transcript [LINK TO TRANSCRIPT HERE]
Partial Acquittal
In this special Talking Feds Now! episode, taped hours after the Senate voted to acquit President Trump, Frank Figliuzzi, Glenn Kirshner, and Barb McQuade join Harry with initial reactions and analysis. Is the verdict an unalloyed triumph, as Trump’s ardent defenders proclaim, or inconclusive given the failure to even present evidence?
To what extent did the defection of Senator Romney take the luster off the verdict? And what should we now expect by way of continuing oversight in the House?
Read the full episode transcript [LINK TO TRANSCRIPT HERE]
Can I Get A Witness?
Republican strategist Rick Wilson joins Matt Miller, Jen Rodgers, and Harry for a post-mortem on the Senate vote to deny witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial Feds and an assessment on the political ramifications of the decision. They consider whether and how the Senate can rationalize the vote, and the possibility that McConnell’s political calculation was errant. Looking past the coming acquittal to the election season, they then assess how the decision will play in the election and in history.
Read the full episode transcript [LINK TO TRANSCRIPT HERE]
We're Lost
Adam Schiff and the impeachment managers wrapped up three days of tightly focused and at times stirring argument that with few exceptions seemed to full on deaf ears of Republican senators. Paul Fishman, Anne Milgram, Asha Rangappa, and Todd S. Purdum (calling in from the hearings) join Harry to discuss the legal strategies of both sides, Adam Schiff's momentous performance, the comportment of the Senators, and the legal and political maneuvers over calling John Bolton and others as witnesses.
Read the full episode transcript [LINK TO TRANSCRIPT HERE]
Will All Senators Now Stand
In a week in which the impeachment trial of President Trump commenced, there were ½ dozen other blockbuster stories, including the Parnas documents and interviews. Natasha Bertrand, Matt Miller, and Joyce Vance join Harry to analyze a series of the biggest developments, including the Parnas materials, the ongoing battle over witnesses, the appointment of Starr and Dershowitz as Trump’s lawyers, and the investigation of James Comey for a three-year old leak.
Read the full episode transcript [LINK TO TRANSCRIPT HERE]
The Big Picture in Homeland Security: 2020 and Beyond
Three of the country’s premier experts in national security -- Frank Figliuzzi, Malcolm Nance, and Juliette Kayeem—in frank, unmediated discussion about the new threats to the nation heading into the 2020 election. The Russian intervention in 2016 presents a sinister, existential hazard that calls for the same kind of paradigm shift in homeland security that the 2001 attacks required in intelligence. And the Administration’s hostility to career professionals makes the threats that more keen.
Read the full episode transcript [LINK TO TRANSCRIPT HERE]
From Russia with Blood
The Feds cast a close focus on the scourge of Russian Organized Crime, which stepped into the gap left by the fall of the Soviet Union to play an illicit and controlling role in virtually every important in the country. At the same time, it maintains remarkable ties with Putin’s government, which ultimately controls its actions, including ordering targeted killings of people all over the world who have fallen out of Putin’s favor; and it may have played a role in some of the Trump Organization’s business dealings over the last 15 years. A panel of Russian OC specialists – David Hickton, the US Attorney who brought the first cybercrime case against Russian OC; Martha Boersch who brought and litigated the first important case in US courts involving Russian OC; and Heidi Blake, an investigative reporter whose new book provides an authoritative account on Putin’s use of OC to make war on the West, join Harry to plumb the depths of a singular threat to Western democracies.
