Larry Diamond on 'Ill Winds'
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2019
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, has spent the last forty years studying democracy. Over the last few years, he’s observed democratic values begin to crumble to political pressure, while authoritarianism is on the rise. Diamond sat down with Benjamin Wittes to discuss his latest book “Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency,” in which he charts the rise of illiberal leaders across six continents, including our own; the growing influence of China and Russia; and how the election of Donald Trump has affected all of this. Diamond argues that, to curb rising despotism, the United States must reclaim its role as an ardent defender of global democracy. To lighten the conversation a bit, they also discussed places where democratic values have seen a resurgence.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.4 | Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:55.6 | On April 18th 2019 the Justice Department released the redacted Mueller report to the public. |
| 1:05.9 | The 448 page document details a story that has captured America's attention. |
| 1:11.9 | From Russian plots to interfere with our election to constitutional questions of executive |
| 1:16.5 | power, the Mueller report is potentially one of the most important and consequential |
| 1:21.3 | documents of our time. |
| 1:24.4 | But there's a problem. |
| 1:26.2 | Very few people have actually read it. |
| 1:30.6 | Two years ago the acting attorney general asked me to serve as special counsel. |
| 1:35.0 | And he created the special counsel's office. |
| 1:37.4 | It is important that the office's written work speak for itself. |
| 1:41.5 | It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions. |
| 1:46.1 | And the report is my testimony. |
| 1:48.3 | The charge to say it was the work of 12 officers of Russian military intelligence. |
| 1:52.8 | The report did not clear the president of obstruction of justice who relentlessly sought |
| 1:57.6 | to use top white house staffers to quote, curtail the investigation. |
| 2:02.4 | That clearly stated that the Russian government wasn't far behind the interference operations |
| 2:07.5 | that we were seeing at the time. |
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