The "Wet February" Edition

This week, Alan, Quinta and Scott were joined by Lawfare senior editor, Roger Parloff! They talked through some of the week's biggest national security news, including:

• “The Turn Heel State.” North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorne has sued to stop a state law inquiry into whether he is disqualified from running for re-election under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment for participating in the Jan. 6 insurrection, not by disputing the facts, but on due process grounds and in reliance on a 1872 law pardoning members of the Confederacy. What are the odds of his case and what does it tell us about the possibility of future disqualification proceedings?
• “There Never Was a Quiet Part, Was There?” Former President Trump triggered a stir earlier this week when he made statements suggesting not only that former Vice President Mike Pence could have overturned the 2020 election outcome, but that he would pardon participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection if reelected in 2024. What impact will this have on ongoing reform debates–and Trump’s election prospects?
• “He Took Home a Bronze for Dodging the Issue.” The Beijing Olympics get underway later this week, kicking off a multi-week period where Olympians, their governments, sponsoring corporations and sports fans will all have to navigate an array of tricky questions about how they should act in light of China’s questionable conduct, including its human rights record and expected surveillance of attendees. What should we expect from these games around the games?

For object lessons, Alan recommended the recent Vanity Fair portrait, "The Rise and Fall of Jerry Falwell, Jr.," for some casual bedtime reading. Quinta embraced pundit accountability and issued a mea culpa for an earlier misstatement about a notorious terrorist's history with the law. Scott celebrated the end of "Dry January" by sipping on an amaro caldo, and recommended listeners do the same. And Roger made another drink recommendation from his own family history: the hard-to-find (in America, anyway) vin jaune.

Be sure to visit our show page at www.lawfareblog.com and to follow us on Twitter at @RatlSecurity.

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