Here's the newly released superseding indictment against Maduro and his wife: www.justice.gov/opa/media/14...

AG Pam Bondi says Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been indicted in SDNY. Maduro was previously indicted in 2020 on federal charges including narco-terrorism conspiracy and cocaine importation conspiracy. Unclear what Flores is charged with. Doc: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

As for why the self-defense arguments are themselves problematic, see these earlier pieces: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/did-... www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-...

Informative thread from my @lawfaremedia.org colleague @sranderson.bsky.social, who is a great follow re: international and domestic law on the use of force. Give him a follow!

I also had a longer piece on this ready to go for @lawfaremedia.org post-holidays, which will now need to be a bit…retooled.

Here’s a brief excerpt on the Panama precedent I recently wrote on the topic as part of a broader symposium on recognition for @ajil.bsky.social. Note the quote from the then-legal adviser on why consent wouldn’t have been sufficient absent effective control. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This is why I suspect the Trump admin will keep relying on its (very problematic) drug-related self-defense arguments from its maritime strikes, even as it also claims to have consent from the opposition. But if they emphasize the latter, that would be a departure from past U.S. practice.

In the Panama context, this is why the U.S. didn’t actually rely on consent from the recognized government-in-exile as international legal justification for deposing Noriega (though it cited it as a source of political legitimacy). Other cases I’m aware of took a similar approach.

But as the National Assembly isn’t in effective control of Venezuela at all, it’s not the regime that would have that status under international law (i.e., the de facto government). And relying on it for consent to take actions that would otherwise violate international law raises big questions.

It’s true that the U.S. (like many other countries) has more or less recognized the 2015 National Assembly as Venezuela’s de jure government since 2019. This lets it exercise various state functions contingent on the U.S. domestic legal system, like control of Venezuelan state assets.

A note on today’s announcement on Maduro’s capture: insofar as the Trump admin is relying on the consent of Venezuela’s opposition (and U.S.-recognized gov’t) as an international legal justification, that would be new — not even clearly supported by the Panama precedent.

New: We got an internal ICE document revealing its $100 million ad plan to bring in 14,000 new hires: deals with "tactical" influencers; ads to gun & military buffs; and geo-targeting phones around NASCAR races and gun shows. A "wartime recruitment" mode with paramilitary branding: wapo.st/44QrP5j

You can make LLMs say almost anything. A news organization reporting "what grok said" is engaging in journalistic malpractice. It doesn't know. It just creates plausible sounding words in response to a prompt.

My 2026 New Year’s resolution: Identify the real administrator of DOGE. #WITAOD

I’m really proud of the work we published on @lawfaremedia.org this year. If you appreciate our detailed reporting and analysis, I hope you’ll consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our non-profit journalism. And yes, it’s journalism. 😊 givebutter.com/journalism/a...

I’m really proud of the work we published on @lawfaremedia.org this year. If you appreciate our detailed reporting and analysis, I hope you’ll consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our non-profit journalism. And yes, it’s journalism. 😊 givebutter.com/journalism/a...

For those who prefer video: m.youtube.com/watch?v=lR-b...

Read former special counsel Jack Smith’s transcript before the House Committee on the Judiciary here: judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

I wrote a lot for @lawfaremedia.org this year. I expect that 2026 will require an equal amount of coverage on executive power, administrative law, and the federal workforce. Happy New Year!

I have been lucky enough to join @lawfaremedia.org this year as a senior editor. Please consider supporting our journalism at the link below!

This year, Lawfare senior editors and contributors provided timely analysis of the many thorny legal national security issues that arose. Check out Lawfare's most read articles of the year ⬇️

3. In March the Trump administration wrongfully removed Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a Salvadoran prison and alleged that he was a member of a violent gang. @rparloff.bsky.social took a close look at those allegations and found their credibility lacking: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/abre...

1. Lawfare's most read article of 2025 was @annabower.bsky.social's report of Lindsey Halligan, the U.S. attorney who led the prosecution of Letitia James, sending her a Signal message about Bower's reporting on the James indictment. Read what followed:

I am personally matching the next the next $5,000 in 2025 contributions to @lawfaremedia.org. givebutter.com/journalism

Over on Xitter the Attorney General is pointing to a study that only goes through last year to claim she's fixed the fentanyl crisis. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

It's the “Inadequate Chicken Moved to Inferior Location” Annual End of Year Edition! @sranderson.bsky.social, @benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org, @annabower.bsky.social, and @tylermcbrien.com talked over listener-submitted topics and object lessons. www.lawfaremedia.org/article/rati...

When you staff your administration with posters, they won't stop being posters.

One thing everyone agrees on is that "stuff happens" on Jan 6.

This is not how a normal Justice Department talks about an ongoing investigation—or about putative targets and their uncharged conduct.

Really weird to see the United States Attorney General commenting on an active grand jury investigation—let alone referring to a potential subject of that investigation as a “bad actor.” justthenews.com/accountabili...

The Trump administration says it arrested 4,500 people in a mission targeting “the worst of the worst.” The reality is most of them were people with brown skin who were at the right place —their landscaping jobs, the hardware store, a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru— at the wrong time.

64 days in Chicago: The story of Operation Midway Blitz. Our team fanned out to cover the before, during and after of the federal government’s months-long raid on an American city. This is worth your time to understand the United States today www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/28/c...

“Woman Enjoying Career Literally Made Possible by Feminism Declares Feminism a Failure”

@annabower.bsky.social starts off Lawfare's The Year That Was by talking about DOGE: www.lawfaremedia.org/article/lawf...

unironically a good idea

Honestly I know marriages that have happened for this metaphorical reason

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

"Searching Old Digital Haystacks: Some Thoughts on the Richman v. United States Litigation," a new post from me. Lots of law nerdery just in time for Christmas. reason.com/volokh/2025/...

Godspeed to all the dudes being sent to the grocery store for two last specific things today. If it helps, cornstarch is in the baking aisle

Everyone keeps calling this a Christmas miracle but technically it’s a Festivus miracle, iykyk

A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty: My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media. Huh? When did I say that?!

There’s a lesson here about writing in the age of weaponized lies: Always precede false claims with giant red text, ideally wrapped in a <blink> tag, that says “THIS IS A LIE I AM REFUTING!!” But also, why is a book that makes this kind of lazy, bad-faith argumentation getting any accolades at all?

And yet, In Covid’s Wake quotes me as saying that “the FBI went beyond strategic information sharing and made direct moderation demands” — literally the opposite of what I argue — to buttress their claim that the government was too busy censoring speech to adequately deal with the pandemic.

One such refutation appears in my paper under the heading “The FBI went beyond strategic information sharing and made direct moderation demands.” I spend several hundred words explaining that that didn’t happen.

Since we’re on the topic of asking people for comment …

NEWS: Congresswoman Joyce Beatty sues Trump to block the renaming of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Read the complaint: washingtonlitigationgroup.org/news/new-law...

We are looking for a House reporter who wants to ball out next year job-boards.greenhouse.io/semafor/jobs...

Re-upping the back page of the current @theonion.com print edition in light of Bari’s new explanation below

Great, now I can’t trust everything I read in The Free Press?