Good Morning:
Wednesday on #DogShirtTV, we had a show full of cheerful nonsense. We talked heroic parenting endeavors, desperate cat rescue missions, and the exact nature of a wet rat:
Thursday on #DogShirtTV, the estimable Katsiaryna Shmatsina, our official favorite convicted insurrectionist, came on the show to talk about the relationship between Belarus, Russia, and Trump:
The Situation
In Wednesday’s “The Situation” column, I explain why I do not believe multiple claims made by FBI Director Kash Patel during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. I question the veracity of several of Patel’s statements, including that he never fired agents as retribution for investigating Donald Trump or Jan. 6, that his grand jury transcript from the classified documents case was publicly available, and that he was unaware of reports of agents being required to take polygraph tests that probed whether they had made negative comments about Patel personally.
To be clear, I’m not accusing him of perjury. To do that requires knowing with a great deal more precision than I know precisely what the underlying reality is regarding the individual issues in question. It requires knowing more than I know about his state of mind when he testified as to those things. And it requires a careful analysis of the precise words that he spoke and their relation to that underlying truth. I don’t want to pretend to know more than I do about any of those things.
But I do know that Patel made a series of statements that don’t comport with anything about my understanding about what’s going on at the FBI. Let me enumerate those statements.
Recently On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Isabel Arroyo.
Russia’s Cyber Firms Are Getting Rich During War
Justin Sherman examines how Russia’s cyber industry has grown richer despite U.S. sanctions, emphasizing firms’ successful adaptation to wartime conditions and the persuasive “sales pitch” of Russian cybersecurity in emerging markets. Sherman argues that American policymakers should rely on more than sanctions to curb Russian tech access and highlights the importance of security measures that target cyber supply chains.
Plenty of Russian cyber firms—even sanctioned intelligence contractors—are continuing to build commercial products during war, illicitly access Western software, and land deals in the likes of Latin America, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific. Their profits and adaptation during war are striking. The success of these firms underscores some of the biggest cracks in Western efforts to technologically isolate Russia—and requires American policymakers to rethink their “trusted vendor” approach to global cybersecurity.
Recovering Unlawfully Imposed Tariffs: Navigating Refunds of IEEPA Duties
Joshua Claybourn analyzes the legal obligation of the U.S. government to refund tariffs collected unlawfully under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Claybourn explains why both statutory provisions and judicial precedent require Customs and Border Protection to issue refunds for unlawful exactions, then evaluates different mechanisms by which importers can claim those funds.
In sum, the combination of statutory provisions, judicial precedent, and explicit directives from the CIT’s ruling leaves CBP no discretion in the matter. Once these tariffs are finally invalidated, the government will be legally required to refund the unlawfully collected IEEPA duties to importers, along with interest.
If the IEEPA tariffs are ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court, importers will not receive refund checks automatically; they must affirmatively request refunds through the proper channels. The likely pathways are (a) PSCs for unliquidated entries; (b) protests for liquidated entries; and, if necessary, (c) litigation at the CIT to enforce refund rights.
Trump’s ‘Merit Hiring Plan’ Has a First Amendment Problem
Jordan Ascher and Mia Harris analyze the Trump administration’s plan to screen civil service applicants based on political affiliation, which violates the First Amendment. They explain how “patronage hiring” differs from the established practice of placing political appointees in senior civil service roles and outline paths forward for those seeking to challenge the plan in court.
Who will the administration hire to replace these workers? In May, it offered a clue with the release of its “Merit Hiring Plan,” which claims to “ensure that only the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans are hired to the Federal service.” Tucked into the plan is a seeming requirement that applications for a large swathe of federal jobs ask candidates how they would “advance the President’s Executive Orders and policy priorities” and direct them to “[i]dentify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to [them].”
The questions are plausibly read to make a job applicant’s political allegiance to President Trump a precondition to federal employment. And while the administration subsequently denied that these questions are tantamount to an “ideological litmus test,” that claim rings hollow. For instance, it was recently reported that the questions are in fact being used for—alarmingly—National Weather Service hires, and one analysis shows that the questions have already been added to thousands of federal job applications. Hiring civil servants based on their political affiliation, a practice often referred to as patronage hiring, violates the First Amendment.
Podcasts
On Lawfare Daily, Scott R. Anderson sits down with Dan Byman, Joel Braunold, and Natan Sachs to discuss Israel’s latest offensive in Gaza, airstrikes against Hamas’s leadership in Qatar, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with former Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
On Rational Security, Anderson sat down with me, Shane Harris, Alan Rozenshtein, and Quinta Jurecic to discuss the motivations of Charlie Kirk’s killer, Russian incursions into Poland and Romania, and Karen Hao’s “Empire of AI.”
Also on Lawfare Daily, Maia Woluchem, Livia Garofalo, and Joan Mukogosi join Tyler McBrien to discuss their recent research trips to artificial intelligence (AI) data centers in Pennsylvania, the state’s industrial history, and its burgeoning AI industry.
On Lawfare No Bull, Arroyo shares the audio from FBI Director Kash Patel’s testimony at a Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing this Tuesday. Patel responded to questions about politicized personnel decisions at the agency, gun violence mitigation, the Jeffrey Epstein case, the ongoing investigation into Charlie Kirk’s murder, and more.
Videos
On Sept. 18 at 4pm ET, I sat down with Roger Parloff, Anna Bower, and Eric Columbus to discuss the status of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s challenge to President Trump’s effort to remove her, litigation surrounding the removal of immigrants to third countries, and more.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the bear cub, seen here being difficult:
In honor of today’s Beast, appreciate having hands.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Dog Shirt Daily to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
 | A guest post by
|