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Benjamin Wittes Profile picture
Benjamin Wittes
@benjaminwittes
Senior Fellow at the @BrookingsInst. Editor in Chief of @lawfareblog. Cohost of @inlieuoffunshow. I will block you for any reason or none at all.
20 subscribers
Aug 25, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I love this trend I think all should do it.
Sep 23, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Good thread.

Due process is clearly the wrong concept here. If it were, presumably Merrick Garland was entitled to due process too—having a hearing in the first place. There is no evidence that the Senate believes a nominee is entitled to anything as a matter of right. If the Senate wants to establish norms and expectations about what it will and won’t do in nominations, I’m all for that. I wrote a whole book arguing for it, in fact. But you can’t refuse to hold a hearing for one highly qualified nominee and then...
Sep 22, 2018 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
I don’t know the truth of #sarcasmgate and I really don’t want to see Rod Rosenstein get fired. But both @nytmike and @adamgoldmanNYT are excellent reporters. They are under a lot of fire today. Reminder that their job is not to tell you what you want to hear. That’s all I got. Another thing: I don’t know how the Times got access to this material but I don’t believe it was White House leaks. I am unaware of the White House having access to the McCabe material.
Sep 14, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Boom!
lawfareblog.com/document-super… Prior Lawfare Manafort coverage available here: lawfareblog.com/tagged/paul-ma…
Sep 8, 2018 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
These three threads from @DavidLat are very strong and worth your time. I would like to add a couple of points that apply to all three lines of questioning: Do you really think Brett Kavanaugh is so dumb—so mind-numbingly, idiotically stupid—as to lie under oath in this setting? Even if you hate the guy, take a deep breath and consider: Kavanaugh is a very good lawyer. Very good. He was being asked about matters he knew were going to come up. He was being asked about prior testimony that took place more than a decade ago. He had time to prepare.
Sep 3, 2018 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
I was surprised this morning to receive on Twitter from @EVKontorovich and on email from @jacklgoldsmith responses to my Twitter thread of yesterday that reflect a real misinterpreting of what I was trying to say. Here's the original thread: I don't back off what I said yesterday but my regard for both Jack and Eugene is such that I assume that if they could misread me so completely, others no doubt did as well. So please indulge me a few words of clarification.
Sep 3, 2018 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This is a serious question and deserves a serious answer. I do not ask anyone on the left to embrace anything or anyone they disagree with—though I happen to think @davidfrum is a wonderful person. I do ask those on the left to consider a few things, though. First, understand that the time and energy you spend denouncing those who would work with you on the central challenge of our time is counterproductive.
Sep 2, 2018 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
A few reflections on this tweet, which contains a number of themes I have been thinking about a lot recently. First, "Those who stand against Trump will move on to many different things when he's gone": Yes. We will. Those who stand against Trump come from left, right, and center. What unites them is anti-authoritarianism and democratic pre-politics, not a specific political program.
Aug 17, 2018 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Wow, not a word from @SharylAttkisson on this. It’s almost like she doesn’t care enough about the facts of what she writes about to ask about them. #whoknew? So here’s an interview with myself about every fact about me and this conspiracy theory contained in her article. I put this out there not because it’s interesting but because if Comet Pizza and QAnon show anything, it’s that it’s not a good idea to let conspiracy theories fester
Aug 17, 2018 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Over the past year, a truly loopy conspiracy theory about me has developed in one or another of feverish corners of the fever swamp. It involves the phrase “insurance policy” and a Lawfare article I wrote about the #CoalitionOfAllDemocraticForces shortly before the election. I only mention it because with this perfectly silly article in @thehill by someone named @SharylAttkisson, it seems to have broken through to mainstream media. thehill.com/opinion/white-…
Aug 13, 2018 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I just donated to this @gofundme:"Support for FBI Veteran Pete Strzok" I want to say a few words about why. gf.me/u/kimptr I do not approve of or defend what Strzok did, which was monumentally stupid for a very smart guy, and which caused huge problems for the FBI in two separate high profile investigations on which the integrity of the Bureau's work should have been beyond question.
Jul 22, 2018 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
This is a very important piece in the Carter Page #FISA documents put together yesterday evening by @DavidKris. You should read it. One note on Kris’s first point, that the disclosure of a FISA application is alone monumental, even if redacted heavily, as this one is:
Jul 13, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
BOOOMMM!!!!
justice.gov/live justice.gov/file/1080281/d…
Jul 10, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Last year, Brett Kavanaugh wrote this thoughtful book review in @lawfareblog. lawfareblog.com/congress-and-p… Back in 2014, Lawfare also ran audio of this discussion he and I had with Judge John Bates.
lawfareblog.com/judges-brett-k…
Jul 7, 2018 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
What to make of this New York Times story from yesterday evening ... nyti.ms/2lXN0ML /1/ ... along with this follow-up tweet this morning from @nytmike?


A few thoughts... /2/
Jul 6, 2018 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Here’s a question for CFAA twitter. Imagine you come upon (find on the street) a slip of paper with the private keys to a bitcoin wallet. You then transfer the contents of that wallet to your own wallet. In any conventional sense, you have stolen money. Yet I don’t think you have exceeded authorized access to any computer.
Jun 21, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Bibi’s comment: “No Collusion!” “I hardly knew her. She only ran my campaign for 49 days.”
Jun 20, 2018 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Good morning
Jun 14, 2018 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
The OIG report is coming out today. It will yield a media frenzy, frantic digging out of small pieces of new information, certain presidential gaslighting and use of the matter to attack the unrelated Russia probe, and equally certain howls of vindication from Team Hillary. /1/ Here are the key questions to keep your eyes on: /2/
Jun 3, 2018 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
It is kind of odd for the President’s lawyers to be citing this comment—with which I have some passing familiarity—as evidence that @Comey was content with the White House’s interactions with the FBI. The entire point of the conversation was the FBI needed protection... ...from the White House and that he had spent months trying police the White House’s attempts to engage with the Bureau improperly on investigative matters. He was deeply troubled by those interactions. And he believed he was going to have to spend a lot more time doing it.
May 22, 2018 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
A lot of people are asking me on Twitter for my assessment of Rod Rosenstein’s and Chris Wray’s conduct yesterday. I had suggested in my Atlantic piece yesterday that I thought they would resign, rather than breach the red line of allowing Devin Nunes... ...access to material on an FBI confidential informant. The White House statement suggests there will be an accommodation—and neither man has resigned. So what gives?