Today on Lawfare: June 6, 2025

From The Lawfare Editorial Team

Compiled by Olivia Manes

Articles

The D.C. Circuit Has Quietly Set the Rules for Dismantling Government

Scott R. Anderson explained why several recent statements by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit could provide important insight into how it is likely to approach ongoing litigation over the Trump administration’s deregulatory actions. Anderson provided background on Widakuswara v. Lake, in which the court suggested that congressional direction matters in funding and personnel action—posing implications for judicial scrutiny in other cases.

Underlying both the funding and personnel elements of the en banc D.C. Circuit’s approach in Widakuswara is a common constitutional understanding: that Congress’s directions—at least where enacted into statute—matter when it comes to the operations of federal agencies. While the president undoubtedly has substantial constitutional authority to manage and direct the executive branch, the court does not view this as superseding his duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” nor Congress’s authority to appropriate funds, set the rules for federal employment, or otherwise determine an agency’s structure and functions.

Coming Soon? U.S. Cyber Command in Domestic Networks

Jason Healey and Paul Rosenzweig warned that President Trump faces few constraints if he chooses to initiate domestic military cyber operations against those he deems enemies. Healey and Rosenzweig outlined existing jurisprudence regarding Trump’s use of emergency powers to domestically deploy the military, and considered how these authorities might be applied to the cyber domain, including to monitor the Defense Department, disrupt immigrant-related electronic networks and communications, and surveil political opponents.

Orders to the military to conduct domestic offensive cyber operations would be “awful but lawful”—Trump’s lawyers would likely assert that they are presumptively legal, rooted in long-standing congressional authorities, though used in novel ways. And as demonstrated by the seemingly arbitrary and capricious firing of Gen. Timothy Haugh, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, apparently for not being quite loyal enough, Trump’s administration would not hesitate to summarily (or anticipatorily) replace those who might delay implementation by waiting for a legal ruling.

Walking Into Spiderwebs: Unpacking the Ukraine Drone Attack

Nicholas Weaver broke down “Operation Spiderweb,” Ukraine’s June 1 attack on Russian military infrastructure that inflicted extensive damage on Russian air bases, pointing out that the operation—which hid drones in ISO containers—has consequences beyond the immediate conflict. Weaver suggested that this new strategy will require costly defensive action on Russia’s part and instigate widespread paranoia—and that it may result in a shift in how warfare is conducted globally. 

Operation Spiderweb has effects that will continue to inflict remarkable damage long after June 1. Russia now has to consider any ISO container a potential Ukrainian aircraft carrier, necessitating significant economic investment and carrying consequences for national morale. The Ukrainian attack is unlikely to be the last, as technological innovations make the possibility of a fully autonomous strike increasingly probable—with implications extending beyond the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

The Situation: Keeping Foreigners Out by Way of Domestic Repression

Benjamin Wittes considered the authority behind Trump’s June 4 executive order purporting to restrict the entry of foreign nationals who plan to attend Harvard University, 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f). Wittes suggested that the president’s expansive reading of the law—which was invoked to declare the travel ban during his first administration—is dangerous and incorrect, intending to punish a domestic group by way of excluding foreigners.

The point here is that once the courts accept that 1812(f) allows the president to define a class of aliens by the lawful activity they intend to engage in within the United States—rather than by some organic feature of their alienage itself—the capacity to end-run the First Amendment is extraordinary.

This statute is a dangerous instrument. It is a hopelessly broad delegation of congressional power to the president. It has virtually no checks. Trump in his first term highlighted its capacity for misuse. He did so again Wednesday in a separate action reinstating a version of his travel ban. A reasonable Congress, jealous of its own power, would reconsider, narrow, or repeal it.

Law Enforcement Is Finally Making Progress on Ransomware

In the latest edition of the Seriously Risky Business cybersecurity newsletter, Tom Uren discussed how Operation Endgame—a multinational joint law enforcement operation—is making headway in combating ransomware operations, recent findings that a mobile spyware app may have played a central role in the collapse of the Assad regime, and a new report from The Insider that traces how Russia’s GRU Unit 29155 evolved from a military intelligence group to a cyber operations organization.

So, in just one month, Endgame has carried out significant actions that disrupt the services that cybercriminals use to find credentials, test malware so they are sure it won't be detected, and get access to networks. It's not just doing this by onesies and twosies, either. In each category, it is knocking off the major player completely or landing hits on a range of participants in the field.

It's great to see ransomware being tackled holistically.

Podcasts

Lawfare Daily: WITAOD?: Wittes sat down with Anna Bower to discuss her recent article chronicling her search for the administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). While the article is partly humorous, Bower and Wittes talked about the serious questions raised by her quest.

Videos and Webinars

On June 6 at 4 p.m. ET, Wittes sat down with Bower, Roger Parloff, and James Pearce to discuss challenges to the Trump administration’s mass reductions in force, litigation over deportations and detentions, and more. If you would like to be able to submit questions to the panelists and watch the livestream without ads, become a material supporter of Lawfare on Substack or Patreon. The recording is available on Lawfare’s YouTube channel and will be available later on the Lawfare Podcast feed.

Announcements

The Trials of the Trump Administration, our coverage of President Donald Trump’s executive actions and their legal challenges, has a new homepage. This page includes real-time analysis of the litigation, Lawfare's livestream series, documents related to Trump's actions, and a tracker of the legal challenges against them. Find the page here.

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