Has it only been a week? Yeesh. Well, we are back! In this episode, Bobby Chesney and I focus on three topics:
- The Mueller investigation and the prospect that Mike Flynn may be charged under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
- The increasingly-complex saga of the withdrawn defense lawyers in the al-Nashiri military commission case at GTMO. Habeas petitions are sprouting all over the place, and the procedural complexity of the situation is growing by the day.
- An interesting legal and policy question is lurking out there: The use of the “hybrid model” (that is, military capture and initial interrogation, followed by long-term disposition via the civilian criminal justice system) in the Mustafa al-Imam case generated no complaints from the right, whereas the decision to use the civilian criminal justice system for Saipov certainly did. This highlights the fact that we have a comparatively stable system blending military and criminal law enforcement tools for overseas captures, but no analogue domestically. Yet there is a statute, from the USA Patriot Act in 2001 no less, that arguably could function as the domestic equivalent to the “slow boat” that undergirds the overseas-capture hybrid-model scenario. Will it ever be used, and if so what might a constitutional challenge look like?
With that out of the way, your intrepid hosts wrap up with a debate over the greatest comedy films of all time. What’s your top three? Let us know on Twitter: @nslpodcast
And, hey, while you are online, go ahead and give us a review!