Rishabh Bhandari graduated from Yale College with degrees in History and Global Affairs. His senior thesis focused on the decision making of the Nixon administration in response to the 1971 Bengali Genocide. He is pursuing a doctorate in international relations at Oxford University.
Subscribe to this Lawfare contributor via RSS.
FBI Director James Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, delving into his decision to disclose information related to the Clinton email investigation immediately prior to the election.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the courts delivered another blow to the White House’s immigration regime after a federal district judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked the implementation of President Trump’s executive order, which sought to deny sanctuary cities federal funding for limiting their cooperation with federal law enforcement on illegal immigration. U.S.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for two bombings against Coptic Christian churches in Egypt on Palm Sunday. The Wall Street Journal reports that the attacks killed at least 47 people, just weeks before Pope Francis is slated to arrive in Egypt for the first time.
An explosion caused by a bomb in a St. Petersburg subway station killed ten people and injured many more, the New York Times writes. President Vladimir Putin said that authorities are investigating the explosion as a possible accident, crime, or act of terrorism, and have not ruled out any possibilities. No group has yet claimed responsibility for what may have been an attack. Officials also discovered and disarmed a second bomb in a nearby subway station.
CNN reports that House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) confirmed this morning that he was on the White House grounds the day before his announcement that he saw information suggesting that the communications of then-President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers may have been swept up incidentally as part of surveillance of foreign nationals. Nunes said that he was not at the White House itself, only on the White House grounds.
President Donald Trump accused his predecessor, President Barack Obama, on Saturday of tapping his phones at Trump Tower in the lead-up to the November presidential election. Trump delivered these explosive charges without offering any evidence or a heads-up to key aides, who were caught off-guard by the president’s tweets. Aides to Obama curtly rebuffed Trump’s accusations as “baseless” while Trump’s surrogates attempted to walk back the commander-in-chief’s statements on the Sunday morning TV shows.
The New York Times reports that President Donald Trump plans to submit a budget for the coming fiscal year that includes large increases to the Department of Defense that will be partially offset by drastic cuts to other federal agencies, such as the State Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. This move will mark Trump’s first major foray into the gritty deals of legislation.