← Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
The Rule of Law and the Ethics of Poking the Bear
00:43:57
A slow motion constitutional crisis may be upon us. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Lawfare blog editor and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Ben Wittes, to assess the threats to the rule of law posed by presidential pique.
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- [00:01]
Dahlia Lithwick
Hello, dear Amicus listener, thank you so much for joining us. And because I like you, here's a little tip. If you join our membership program, Slate plus, you can enjoy this and all of Slate's podcasts ad free and you will be supporting our journalism work at the magazine at the same time. So win win. There is a free trial to be found@slateplus.com Amicus now time for the show.
- [00:34]
Ben Wittes
Everybody's focused on the question of whether the President removes Bob Mueller, but they should also be focused on the protection of the deputy Attorney general, who is the acting attorney General for purposes of these investigations. And the President really seems to hate him.
- [00:54]
Dahlia Lithwick
Hi and welcome back to Amicus, Slate's podcast about the courts, the Supreme Court and rule of law, or whatever is left of that rule of law thing in these very, very strange times. I'm Dahlia Lithwick. I cover the courts and the law for Slate. And in the next two weeks, the Supreme Court is going to hear the final oral arguments of this term, including the big, big travel ban argument, which we will discuss in great depth on our next show. But if you've been listening to the past couple of shows, you've probably noticed that we've been talking more and more volubly and probably ever more GR and despondently about the rule of law in the Trump presidency. These have not been, I know, very confidence inspiring conversations, but they have tended to surface a lot of questions, especially from readers about the law and the Constitution and checks and balances and executive powers. So this week, with federal agents raiding the home and offices of Donald Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen on Monday, and this ever increasing drumbeat of threats to fire Robert Mueller or Rod Rosenstein or Jeff Sessions or some combo platter of the three of them coming out of the White House, it doesn't feel like it's an exaggeration to say that we may be quickly getting involved in a slow motion constitutional crisis Next week, with the release of James Comey's much awaited already best selling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, which comes out on Tuesday, things are going to get crazier. Early excerpts from the book reveal unbelievable bombshells, including the revelation that John Kelly told Comey he himself was prepared to step down as head of Department of Homeland Security when Comey was fired and Kelly calling Trump's firing of his FBI director dishonorable. And I guess Comey has also compared Trump to a mob boss in this book. So White House allies are marshaling this huge response, response to discredit Comey's version of how things went down. And also simmering underneath all of this is the possibility that an already furious and very, very reckless president could use the whole Comey book as a pretext for just terminating the Mueller probe. This is not an unserious moment to be quite anxious. And so joining us to discuss this moment is one of the people I'm have wanted to talk to you about it, and that's Ben Whittis. He is the editor of the Lawfare blog. He's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He has written several books, and he is a friend of James Comey's. And if you have not been reading Lawfare this past year, you have probably been missing some of the most important legal thinking around what is happening to the rule of law at this time. So, Ben, with that huge wind up, welcome to Amicus. Thanks.
- [04:08]
Ben Wittes
I don't, I don't know how I could possibly live up to that introduction, but I will say that I am delighted to be here because this is one of my favorite podcasts. And as you know, Dalia, you have been one of my favorite writers in this space for a very long time, long before it was cool. And so it's really fun to be here.
- [04:36]
Dahlia Lithwick
Well, good. I think you probably, if you've been listening to the last couple shows, Ben, you've heard Bob Bauer make me a little nervous, and then Walter Dellinger make me more nervous. And I'm hoping I'm gonna outdo both of them.
- [04:50]
Ben Wittes
They both pulled punches in the making you nervous department, and I'm not gonna do that.
- [04:55]
Dahlia Lithwick
Oh, good. So as we tape, we have been waiting pretty much all week for the thing that's meant to happen. Whatever the conflag, it still hasn't happened. Ben, as of this podcast, can you tell me, why hasn't he fired Rod Rosenstein already?
- [05:18]
Ben Wittes
That's like asking, you know, why hasn't, you know, the pink elephant shown up and danced a tap dance, Right? I mean, firing Rod Rosenstein would be a vile, despicable, and irrational act. And so it's a funny thing that we're all sitting here expecting for him to do something that we all don't want him to do and we would all think would be a terrible thing to do, and yet we expect it. And so why hasn't it happened? The first question we should ask is why? Why would it happen? There's no good reason for it. The only reason we all seem to expect it is that he seems to be threatening to do it. And Ginning up talk radio or, or Fox News to call for it. So I don't know why it would happen, and I also don't know why it hasn't happened.
- [06:11]
Dahlia Lithwick
Let's start by talking about that Michael Cohen raid. It feels like it was 150 years ago, but in fact it was Monday. Is Michael Cohen gonna flip? Is he in enough trouble now that he rolls on the President? And it seems to me that the gravity of his legal situation is such that. And I don't know if you agree with the theory that the Scooter Libby pardon is just a way of saying, not to worry, Manafort, not to worry, Cohen, you're all good. But that's what we're wondering, right? That's what America's trying to figure out, is how high you can turn up the heat on Michael Cohen. Is he gonna go to jail for Donald Trump?
- [06:53]
Ben Wittes
So I think there's a few questions there. Let's hold aside Scooter Libby for a second because I actually think that may be about something else. So one question is, is Michael Cohen in very deep trouble? And the answer to that question is clearly yes. The second question is, is he going to be willing to flip? And that is, of course, a question that you can't possibly answer without knowing his psychological proclivities. He has certainly said publicly on repeated occasions that he is the ultimate Trump loyalist. He would rather jump out of a building than turn on Trump. And how much of that is his deepest soul? And how much of that is bravado? And how much of that is just signaling to Trump for purposes of pardon? Purposes that he's, you know, on the team? I don't think we know, and I don't think we will know until such time as he is squeezed and either capitulates or doesn't.
- [08:06]
Dahlia Lithwick
I guess I have to pause now and say I have long been an unfortunate purveyor of the Steve Brier four part nested question. And Ben, you're the first person who's ever called me out for it. So in the seven part question that I asked you, I'd love for you to circle back to Scooter Libby. What's your theory?
- [08:26]
Ben Wittes
Okay, so my theory is that this is just an elaborate way of trolling Jim Comey because Scooter Libby was prosecuted by Pat Fitzgerald, who is one of Comey's, you know, very closest confidants and who was appointed as special prosecutor, special counsel in this. In what the Valerie plain matter by then Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey. And, and so in Certain parts of the right wing fever swamp. Jim Comey is forever blamed for what happened to Scooter Libby, and you'll see them tied together on a semi regular basis. There's this idea that this grave injustice was done to Scooter Libby and it was all the fault of Jim Comey because he appointed his friend Pat Fitzgerald. And the one element of truth to that is that Jim Comey and Pat Fitzgerald are friends. And Pat Fitzgerald was appointed by Jim Comey and did prosecute Scooter Libby. And so I think the fact that as Jim's book is coming out, the White House reminds everybody that the President has the pardon power by pardoning somebody who they think it will kind of get under Jim's skin. I think it's a kind of form of trolling, to be honest.
- [09:58]
Dahlia Lithwick
I think it was reported also this week, among the breaking news stories, that Steve Bannon has this elaborate plan that he's floating to fire Rod Rosenstein and cripple the Mueller probe using some, I don't know, complicated, retroactive, triple Lutz theory of privilege that maybe, I don't know, he learned at Trump University Law School. Can you understand what he is proposing? I know that the White House has sort of blanked this out anyway. They seem to be not super receptive to whatever Bannon is offering. But can you help listeners understand what it is that Bannon is proposing in terms of silencing?
- [10:40]
Ben Wittes
So I cannot because, you know, just because it is so incoherent, it seems to involve a retroactive application of executive privilege to conversations that have already taken place between White House witnesses and the special counsel's office. I honestly think it's so goofy that it's not worth anybody's time, except for one thing, which is that the Post reported that he did meet with some White House people to discuss getting rid of Rod Rosenstein. And so the part of it that I do take seriously is not the retroactive assertion of executive privilege part, but the part that it does seem to fit into a larger pattern of some very serious conversations about firing Rosenstein. And that I think is a terribly serious matter, because this would be another corrupt removal of somebody in charge of the Russia investigation for the simple reason that he is in charge of the Russia investigation and the President doesn't like the Russia investigation and wants to shut it down. Rod Rosenstein is somebody about whom my enthusiasm is altogether under control. But he, you know, has since appointing Bob Mueller assiduously and honorably protected that investigation. And he has, in the context in the Cohen matter has, you know, really behaved in a, in a straight shooting and dignified fashion with respect to taking responsibility for, you know, supervising the management of that between the Mueller probe and the Southern District of New York, which is handling aspects of that matter. And so I think, you know, the idea that, you know, everybody's focused on the question of whether the President removes Bob Mueller, and rightly so, but they should also be focused on the protection of the deputy Attorney general, who is, you know, the acting Attorney general for purposes of, of these investigations. And, you know, the President really seems to hate him and really wants to get rid of him. And, and that's a dangerous situation, and it's potentially very combustible situation.
- [13:16]
Dahlia Lithwick
So. So that's a nice segue to the other very combustible situation, which is the Comey book, which drops on Tuesday. But I think everybody's read now, I guess I have to ask you, have you read it?
- [13:29]
Ben Wittes
I have not read it. I have read the news stories about the. About it from the various news organizations that have obtained early copies and violated the embargo, but I have not read it myself.
- [13:47]
Dahlia Lithwick
This is a side of James Comey. I mean, you know him well, but I think that the public. James Comey, you know, the, the sort of straight shooting man of honor is, is clearly pissed, I think is the legal word. And, you know, there's language that's leaked. You know, this president is unethical, untethered to the truth, untethered to institutional values. There's a comparison to, you know, Comey's time investigating the mob in New York. He talks about the similarity to the Trump administration, quote, the silent circle of ascent, the boss in complete control, the loyalty oaths, the us versus Them worldview, the lying about all things large and small in service to some code of loyalty that puts the organization above morality and above the truth. You know, Comey paints, at least according to the what's been leaked, pretty vivid picture of an incurious, narcissistic, not very knowledgeable person who. I think one of the lines that really spoke to me was, you know, he's built a, quote, cocoon of alternative reality around the people in the room with him. Is this a definitive recitation of the case against Donald Trump, or is this just punching back hard?
- [15:10]
Ben Wittes
Well, so, first of all, I mean, it's not new that Jim feels this way. And, you know, when I decided shortly after he was fired to describe publicly the. My interactions with him while he was in office on this subject, you know, if you go back to that Article which, you know, I talked on the record to the New York Times about it and then I wrote it up in a long lawfare post about my conversations with Jim. The tone of what I described at the time is exactly what you're describing now about the book, which is, you know, a sense of these as highly dishonorable people who have no respect for the traditional role of federal law enforcement or the relationship between federal law enforcement and the White House and who, you know, are behaving in an entirely self interested and institutionally destructive fashion. And all of that was, you know, very clear to me that Jim felt that way in I last saw him before he was fired in late March of last year. And, you know, I walked out of that lunch, no doubt in my mind that he felt this way and you know, to the point that I could go to the New York Times, you know, a couple months later and describe these conversations and, you know, with 100% confidence that this was how he felt. And so, you know, I think the, and, and look, when he spoke before the Senate Intelligence Committee, these feelings came, were very, you know, very clear at the time then too. And so, you know, I don't think it is new that he feels this way. Incidentally, when I talked to the New York Times, to Mike Schmidt, I was on the record the whole time. The only time I went off the record was to compare Donald Trump to a mob boss. And then I called him back later and said, no, you can use that too. This was not a comparison that I had had explicitly with Comey at any time in my memory. But, you know, but we both reacted to the things that he was talking about with that as an obvious metaphor. And so I thought it was really interesting that it showed up explicitly. Look, Jim is very angry and he is a genial, good natured person. He's a genuinely lovely person. And he is furious at what was what the President has done to the organization and the people of the organization that he led. And, you know, he spent four months or five months trying to be the shield that protected the organization from this person. And you know, when he was dismissed, he was dismissed in a fashion that he never even got a chance to say goodbye. You know, people, he never went, he was never allowed back in the building. And there are a lot of people in that building who feel close to him. And so if you're detecting anger, it's because it's there. If you're detecting thorough contempt and moral disregard for the people with whom he had to interact in that period of time in the White House and in the president's circle. I'm sure that's because you're reading the situation correctly.
- [19:38]
Dahlia Lithwick
So maybe I want to try to ask the same question in a starker way. And I think I want to frame it in the sort of Michelle Obama moral frame of when they go low, you go high. I'm just thinking about, you know, the leaked line about, you know, Donald Trump's hands and his hair and like, you know, the white patches under his eyes from the tanning booth goggles. And I'm just trying to figure out whether this attempt to thread the needle between, you know, staying high, you know, continuing to be. And I completely agree with you, the honorable, occasionally in error, but I think striving to do the right thing for law enforcement. Jim Comey with the Jim Comey who's just like, taking some cheap shots. Ben, is he playing into the White House's story that they want to tell about? This is just an aggrieved, corrupt guy who wanted to make a bunch of money and cash in, and he's saying nasty stuff about the president because he is a liberal.
- [20:52]
Ben Wittes
Well, so look, as to whether the book takes cheap shots, that I can't answer because I haven't read the book. Right. And so I, you know, I don't, I don't know whether there are a few, a lot, some or no passages of the book that I'll read and cringe and say, I wish you hadn't done that. I do not think it is a cheap shot for Jim Comey to tell his story. There are parts of this story that when he was fired, I thought it was very important came out. And I thought it was so important that I went and made sure it came out. And I am very glad he is telling the rest of it, both the parts of it that I know and the parts of it that I don't know. And there's a lot of it that I, that I don't know. I don't think that's a cheap shot at all. But I do think in your question, there is this other embedded question, which is should we as a society not respond, you know, when the president does says horrible things, lies about people, should we, should we, as in Trump's language, counterpunch. Right. Or should we, you know, turn the other cheek? And so I have a mixed position on that, which is I don't believe in, you know, rhetoric as a, you know, Trump called in a tweet, called Jim a slime ball. I don't believe it's a good idea for Jim, for example, to respond to that with, no, you're a slime ball. Right. I don't think you should play the President's game. On the other hand, I do think somebody has to stand up for the institution of the FBI and for federal law enforcement. And, you know, the President is lying about individuals, he's lying about institutions, he's creating an environment in which I can't imagine why anybody would want to cooperate with the FBI who believes on anything, who believes the President. Right. And I think somebody needs to stand up publicly, early and often and say these are lies and here's the truth, here's what happened, and to stand, be willing to confront the President about those lies. And I do think you have to do it in a dignified way. But I think the failure to do it, the refusal to do it, is demoralizing to the institution. And I, look, I think Chris Wray is a good, decent man and I think he's in an impossible position. But it bothers me that he does not stand up and talk about the FBI in public. And so I don't know where the right balance is. But I am personally glad that Jim is telling his story.
- [24:16]
Dahlia Lithwick
It's so interesting that you're saying that as you're saying it, Ben. I'm reflecting on the year that I've spent wishing that the federal judiciary would respond when Trump goes after judges by name or calls them so called judges or, you know, discredits the entire 9th Circuit. And that stoic silence that the judiciary has to affect in order to, you know, maintain all the values you're describing, you know, dignity and decorum and seriousness of purpose and sobriety of mind, all of that means that these tweets go unanswered. The other thing that's so interesting to me listening to you is, you know, you started this podcast talking about, you know, Donald Trump in this endless feedback loop like he is, the President is talking only to Fox News and Fox News is talking to him. And you know, that's the totality of the world. And then there's this ironic way in which the President is communicating via Twitter and Jim Comey is communicating via, you know, several hundred page book. And there's just such a deeply weird way in which the entirety of, you know, the constitutional crisis we're in is being expressed in media, in, in rhetoric and media. And it's, you know, I'm sitting here talking to you on a podcast, I realized the meta ness of that observation. But there's such a strange way in which this is all being done. It's, it's almost as though Jim Comey is saying, like, I see your 140 characters and raise you, you know, 400 and whatever pages. But it is just, I'm trying to think of an analog.
- [26:03]
Ben Wittes
You know, you raised the issue of the silence of the federal judiciary. Let me, you know, let me see you that and raise you the silence of federal law enforcement. Because the President of the United States said in public that he's thought that when police arrest somebody, they shouldn't be too gentle when they put him in the car. Right. And they should rough him up a bit while putting him in the car. And the Attorney General of the United States had nothing to say about that in response. And the Deputy Attorney General of the United States had nothing to say about that in response. And actually at the time, the FBI leadership had nothing to say about it in response. The highest ranking law enforcement official of the United States to say anything about it was the acting director of the dea, Chuck Rosenberg, who responded by writing a letter to the DEA staff saying, we don't behave that way now. You know, I think that there is a much greater danger to senior law enforcement not speaking right now than there is to senior law enforcement speaking. And so will. I prefer to read the book and find not one sentence that I wish had not been in there or worded differently, whatever. Yeah, I will feel better if there is like not one thing that I can fault. It's a 300 page book. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were not the case. But I do think that the much greater risk than Jim Comey being Comey unleashed is that he would have, you know, not told the story of what happens, of what happened in that period of time, which after all is a period of time in which President of the United States did extraordinarily evil and dangerous things in his interactions with federal law enforcement.
- [28:29]
Dahlia Lithwick
So I do think when we get the T shirts made, if we all survive the weekend, it will just. The theme of this moment will be you engage with Trump at your peril and you don't engage with Trump. Jump at your peril, and everybody finds their lane in which to try to sort out that paradox. I think before we leave Comey, I have to ask you one other question, and that is, and I don't know if James Comey bears the responsibility for thinking about this, but there's certainly a non trivial possibility that the release of this book will affect whatever happens in the Mueller investigation, It could lead us to drop missiles on Syria. I mean, there could be the kind of conflagration that you and I can't even begin to imagine. When the president gets angry about this, is that something that Comey needs to answer for?
- [29:35]
Ben Wittes
You mean, does he need to answer for the bear's reaction when poked?
- [29:41]
Dahlia Lithwick
Yeah, that's. We call that blaming the victim. But I just. The stakes are crazy high.
- [29:48]
Ben Wittes
I do think the mere asking of that question shows that we are all like at this point, spousal abuse victims. Right. Because that's the question, you know, was it my fault because I upset him? This is the President of the United States in a democracy. And one of the things about Article 2 of the Constitution, which starts with the words that all of the executive power is in the hands of a single person. The executive power of the United States shall be vested in a President of the United States. When you say that, that means the responsibility for the exercise of the executive power is not in the hands of the former FBI director.
- [30:35]
Dahlia Lithwick
Fair enough.
- [30:37]
Ben Wittes
I mean, I don't know. The Constitution does answer this question. You know, in a democracy when after a two year campaign, the people get the leadership they elect and they generally elect the people they deserve. And if we are looking to blame former officials for speaking the truth, as for the results of the behavior of the officials that we elect to do jobs, we are asking. We're asking the wrong question at the wrong point in time.
- [31:18]
Dahlia Lithwick
Fair? I think fair enough. The White House is mounting and the RNC is mounting this massive campaign to discredit Comey in advance of the release of the book. By far my favorite line of argument is he's just doing this for the money, say the kleptocrats. But is there any claim that is being advanced? I mean, and again, stop, pause, reflect on the fact that they are going after a lifelong Republican and other lifelong Republicans who have served the country honorably. But, but is there any part of this counter offensive that strikes you as worrisome or capable of turning public opinion against Jim Comey next week?
- [32:11]
Ben Wittes
Well, so look, first of all, Jim Comey, who was the general counsel of Lockheed Martin and then Bridgewater, which is the world's largest hedge fund, message, doesn't need the money. You know, like one thing this is not about is money. But look, the O. P. Twitter feed is on a full bore campaign against, as you point out, a lifelong Republican, former, you know, career law enforcement official who's had numerous appointments in Republican administrations. It is completely silly. It is undignified.
- [33:07]
Dahlia Lithwick
And.
- [33:10]
Ben Wittes
Propaganda works. And I am sure there are a lot of people who will be reasonably persuaded that the problem is that Jim Comey is a lying leaker whose lifelong ambition in getting involved in Republican politics was to protect Hillary Clinton. I don't know what you can do about that other than tell the truth and assume that the number of people that such a campaign can convince is not, is not as many people as the truth will persuade. That said, of course, it's of concern that a major organ of our political life is going on a deliberate campaign of lies and that a set of associated media entities are devoted to amplifying those lies. And by the way, it's not just, Jim, the transformation of Bob Mueller into, on Sean Hannity's show, the head of a criminal enterprise. I, you know, would not have thought we were capable as a society of doing things like this, but, and I do think there's going to have to be a reckoning for it somehow. I have always disliked advert, you know, going after people's advertisers, but I have to say that when, when that Parkland shooting survivor went after Laura Ingraham's advertisers, and I thought that was actually pretty good. And I think we have to think about what the business consequences of having organizations that are overtly devoted to lying for a living. This isn't just, this isn't principally about Jim. It's about the entire ecosystem right now, a world in which the fundamental problem is the people investigating the President and his coterie's misconduct rather than the misconduct itself. And I do think we have to think about what the economics of that ecosystem look like and how in a First Amendment culture it is appropriate as a society, probably not as a, it's not a matter of law, it's a matter of our interactions with those entities. But it's a very serious problem.
- [36:26]
Dahlia Lithwick
I'm glad you're sort of ending up there because I think, you know, for me, and so much so in this era and on this podcast, you know, the dividing line has not been ideological as much as truth based and fact based. And I think it's because the law in the end of the day is so completely and profoundly shaped by presumptions of truth and of good faith. It's really hard to kind of exist in a universe in which not only is there no truth, but there's this presumption that truth is unknowable, that it's all just. The President just kind of generally feels as though there was vote fraud and that substitutes for actual demonstrable fact. And I think you're quite right that the valence of truth seeking is inherently corrupt and bad. If we don't like the target of the inquiry, I think that's. It's so dangerous. I think the last question I want to ask you, your long post about what will happen if Rod Rosenstein is, in fact fired in the coming days up at Lawfare and we can link to it. You make the point that I feel that I'd been making since the Merrick Garland nomination, which is, we can't keep talking about this as though it's a legal problem. This is a political problem. If Rod Rosenstein is fired, we can talk all day about the legalities, and that's not important. What's important is will people care?
- [38:17]
Ben Wittes
So, look, I know I'm going to come off as sounding like a crazy lefty when I say this, and I.
- [38:22]
Dahlia Lithwick
Ben is not a crazy lefty. Not a crazy lefty, yeah.
- [38:25]
Ben Wittes
That. I've been accused of many things in my life, and until recently, nobody has ever accused me of being a crazy lefty. But look, this is, you know, this is a legal podcast. And, you know, in the legal community, we tend to think about legal remedies for things. This is not a fundamentally a legal problem is fundamentally a moral and political problem. And the core of the problem is, is it okay to have a president who behaves this way? Is it okay to have a president who removes the deputy attorney general because he doesn't like an investigation that that deputy attorney general is supervising and because he really wants the Justice Department to investigate his political opponents? Now, there is no law that says that that's not okay. There is a. There is a many decades of normative assumption about decency. And the way a president is supposed to behave and not supposed to behave that says that it's not okay. And that can change. And the way it changes is if people defy those expectations and then they don't pay a price. So here's the bottom line. The bottom line is if the president fires Rod Rosenstein or Bob Mueller and there is not a devastating political consequence for that, then that is a way of saying in our political system, it is okay to engage with federal law enforcement on an openly corrupt basis. And I don't accept that. And that means that faced with a president who engages with federal law enforcement on an openly corrupt basis, I look for political levers to respond to that. I know of three. One is Congress. Congress is not shrouding itself in confidence, building robes right now. I remain hopeful that eventually people will wake up and do something, but I'm not confident of that at all. And I don't think anybody else should be either. The second is elections. If the president does not face a devastating political defeat in November, we will be saying that this is okay. And the third is, you know, organic expression of political discontent, that is to say, protests. And, you know, if Rod Rosenstein or Bob Mueller gets fired, people should turn out in the streets because there needs to be an immediate feedback mechanisms. The courts will not do anything they can't. And with all due respect to my dear friend Steve Vladek and the others who are pushing the idea of a kind of Mueller protection bill in Congress, whether that's a good idea or a bad idea, it's not going to pass. And if it passes, the president will veto it. And even if it somehow makes it into law, it still wouldn't really prevent him from doing something. The much more immediate question is, if it happens, will people make clear that this is not okay? That is fundamentally not a legal issue. It's not even a legal question. It's a political question, and it's a moral and spiritual question.
- [42:15]
Dahlia Lithwick
Ben Wittes, I should say, is in my list of the top 17 most temperate people in America. So I do take those words very much to heart. Ben is the editor of the Lawfare blog, which should be bookmarked listeners, and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a friend of James Comey's and somebody who has, I know because he's really tired, been working unbelievably hard for the past year and a half to translate what happens in the world of law and national security for those of us who don't understand it as he does. Ben, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to be on the podcast today.
- [42:59]
Ben Wittes
Thanks for having me. And keep it up.
- [43:04]
Dahlia Lithwick
And with that, we are all done with this edition of Amicus. Thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get in touch with us, our email is, as always, amicus@slate.com we really love your letters. Thank you. And you could always find us@facebook.com amicus podcast. Today's show was produced by Sarah Burningham. Steve Lichti is our executive producer and June Thomas is managing producer of Slate Podcast and a special shout out to Virginia foundation for the Humanities, where today's show was recorded in Charlottesville, Virginia. In two weeks weeks, we will be back with another episode of Amicus. Till then, take care. Thanks for listening.