The Lawfare Podcast · The Lawfare Institute

Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, March 13

March 16, 2026·1 hr 33 min·5 clips

Judge Boasberg quashes subpoenas, calling them a pretext to pressure Fed Chair Powell over interest rates.

This episode of The Lawfare Podcast, recorded live on March 13, 2026, features editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes with senior editors Scott Anderson, Roger Parloff, Eric Columbus, and Kate Klonick covering multiple breaking legal developments. The lead story is Judge James Boasberg's 27-page opinion quashing two grand jury subpoenas that AG Jeanine Pirro issued targeting the Federal Reserve and its chair Jerome Powell. Boasberg finds a mountain of evidence that the subpoenas' dominant purpose was to pressure Powell into voting for lower interest rates or resigning, while the government produced no evidence Powell committed any crime. The opinion catalogs over 100 Trump statements in media calling for rate cuts and Powell's removal. Boasberg notes the government's only basis was Powell's testimony at a Senate banking hearing about building renovation costs, writing that the government might as well investigate him for mail fraud because someone once saw him send a letter. Pirro held a press conference announcing a motion for reconsideration and potential appeal, incorrectly characterizing Boasberg's standard as requiring probable cause when his opinion explicitly stated otherwise. The panel discusses Lawfare's own lawsuit filed against the State Department and Secretary Marco Rubio for failing to comply with the Case-Zablocki Act as amended by the 2023 NDAA. Scott Anderson explains the statute requires disclosure of executive agreements and qualifying non-binding international arrangements. The Biden administration implemented the regime consistently, but disclosures stopped in January of the prior year. Lawfare has identified at least a dozen agreements discussed in press accounts that do not appear in the required databases. Kate Klonick covers Anthropic's dual lawsuits against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Department of Defense, filed in the Northern District of California and the D.C. Circuit. Anthropic challenges its designation as a supply chain risk, arguing it violates the Fifth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act. The Northern District judge skipped the TRO phase and set a preliminary injunction hearing for March 24. Microsoft filed an amicus brief warning the designation creates a dangerous precedent for government contractors and tech companies. Klonick frames the case as a test of whether the government can use national security procurement powers to pressure AI companies into removing safety limits, noting the broader stakes for who controls AI development. Scott Anderson reports on Judge Royce Lamberth's ruling that Kari Lake's actions as head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media are invalid because she was never lawfully appointed under the Vacancies Act. Lake was neither a prior USAGM employee nor Senate-confirmed for any position. The ruling invalidates all her prior actions including multiple rounds of reductions in force, contract terminations, and lease cancellations. The Trump administration has since placed State Department official Michael Regas in the role and nominated Sarah Rogers as permanent CEO. Lake called Lamberth an activist judge and said she would appeal. Eric Columbus covers D.C. Bar disciplinary charges filed against Ed Martin, former interim U.S. Attorney for D.C., stemming from letters he sent to Georgetown Law School's dean threatening to cut the school off from DOJ employment programs unless it eliminated DEI programming. The bar counsel determined Martin knew or should have known his actions violated the First and Fifth Amendments. Martin compounded his problems by sending an ex parte letter to judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals after being informed of the charges.

As heard by us

A serious legal roundtable on a Boasberg ruling and the practical consequences that follow.

Lawfare Live treats the latest Trump administration courtroom fight as something more than a headline. It starts with Judge Boasberg's 27-page memorandum opinion, then moves into the Vacancies Act dispute and the harder question underneath it: which earlier actions can still be…

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You want the courtroom stakes behind the latest Trump-administration legal blowback.

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