Il Est Arrivé!
The Putin death head gobo is here
Good Morning:
The glass version of the Putin Death Head gobo has arrived. Test will happen tomorrow. #excited
To a movie.
Don’t eat canned goods.
The food was good.
As much as in a James Bond movie and not a wee bit more.
I can think of two others.
It’s the thing that comes after liberalism.
Because they suck at soccer.
People who don’t mind breaking bread with one murderous dictator and one would-be murderous dictator.
Yesterday on #DogShirtTV, the mysterious—and presumably estimable—Albert Craig appeared. We don’t know who he is or why he attends #DogShirtTV tapings, but yesterday he looked a lot like the estimable
.Eve and I discussed what exactly intelligence means for AI, and whether AI needs more than intelligence:
The Situation
In Monday’s “The Situation” column, I discuss the government’s mix of misconduct and ineptitude in its criminal case against James Comey, as highlighted in Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick’s recent opinion granting Comey’s request for disclosure of grand jury materials.
The government then asked, foolishly in retrospect, “that the Court review the transcript of grand jury testimony in camera to confirm the baselessness of the defendant’s claim that privileged information may have been shared with the grand jury.” It’s not exactly a shock that, after doing this review, Judge Fitzpatrick found that he agrees with himself that the material should, as he ordered before, be disclosed to the defense.
What is a shock is the diversity and range of his “particularized and factually based grounds” for doing so.
Judge Fitzpatrick makes a series of factual findings that amount to this claim: “[T]he government’s actions in this case—whether purposeful, reckless, or negligent—raise genuine issues of misconduct, are inextricably linked to the government’s grand jury presentation, and deserve to be fully explored by the defense.”
Yesterday On Lawfare
Compiled by the estimable Isabel Arroyo
The Shutdown Is Over, but Federal Workers Aren’t Out of the Woods
Nick Bednar argues that, while recent provisions for back-paying furloughed federal workers and staying reductions in force are both important, the Trump administration’s legally dubious attacks on the federal workforce during the shutdown require a significantly stronger congressional response.
On Nov. 9, eight Democrats in the Senate defected from the party to end the filibuster on a proposed continuing resolution. The resolution funds the government through Jan. 30, 2026. Two provisions alleviate some of the harm suffered by federal employees during the shutdown. The first provision awards back pay to all federal employees for the shutdown period. The second provision invalidates all actions related to reductions in force (RIFs) during the shutdown and imposes a moratorium on additional RIFs until at least Jan. 30, 2026.
While these provisions are important for protecting the federal workforce, they are temporary and do not halt the Trump administration’s assault on the federal workforce. If Congress truly wants to protect federal workers (at least in agencies that enjoy bipartisan support), it should leverage the power of the purse to secure greater concessions from the Trump administration and impose stronger guardrails.
To Evade Sanctions, the Kremlin Turns to a Convicted Money Launderer
Elise Thomas presents the results of her investigation into A7, a cross-border payments service headed by a Moldovan fugitive that one Russian state bank may be using to evade sanctions. Thomas describes how integrating operations such as A7 into legitimate banking institutions might affect foreign counterparts’ willingness to do business in Russia.
Why would a bank hire a convicted thief to run a payments company?
This was the question I kept returning to as I was investigating A7, a Russian cross-border payments service specifically designed to enable large-scale sanctions evasion, and its associated cryptocurrency A7A5. A7 was officially launched by Promsvyazbank (PSB), a heavily sanctioned Russian state-owned military bank, in October 2024. In a press release announcing the launch, PSB called A7 a “unique settlement mechanism” that would “support Russian participants in foreign economic activity and their trading partners in the face of anti-Russian sanctions pressure.” A7 is also financially backed by VEB.RF, a key Russian state development institution.
It’s not surprising that state-owned PSB and VEB.RF want to enable sanctions evasion for Russian businesses, especially when faced with Russia’s worsening economic situation. A7 has received public backing from the highest levels of the Kremlin, including Putin himself. But here’s the weird thing: A7 is led (and majority owned) not by a Russian banker or bureaucrat but by a convicted criminal named Ilan Shor.
Podcasts
On Lawfare Daily, Anna Bower sits down with Michael Feinberg and Eric Columbus to discuss extraordinary actions that Congress and the Department of Justice have taken in response to calls to release investigative files related to Jeffrey Epstein. The three discuss the Justice Department’s unusual “review” of the Epstein files, the oversight role of Congress, and proposed legislation aimed at compelling the files’ release.
On Scaling Laws, Jeff Bleich joins Kevin Frazier to discuss how the practice of law looks at the edge of the artificial intelligence (AI) frontier, Bleich’s earlier work in the autonomous vehicle space, and legal uncertainties in AI governance.
Announcements
Submissions are now open for Lawfare’s annual Ask Us Anything podcast, an opportunity for you to ask Lawfare editors and contributors your most burning questions of the year. You can submit questions through Dec. 16.
Today’s #BeastOfTheDay is the baby hippo:
In honor of today’s Beast, meditate on the virtue of filial piety.
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