Benjamin Wittes
Benjamin Wittes (born November 5, 1969) is an American legal journalist and Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he is the Research Director in Public Law, and Co-Director of the Harvard Law School–Brookings Project on Law and Security. He works principally on issues related to American law and national security. Along with Robert M. Chesney and Jack Goldsmith, Wittes cofounded the "Lawfare Blog". Wittes is also a member of the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law. Wittes is a frequent speaker on topics of detention, interrogation, and national  security, before academic, government, policy, and military audiences. Early life and education. Wittes was born in 1969 in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended a Jewish day school in New York City, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oberlin College in 1990. Career. After a stint covering the United States Department of Justice and federal regulatory agencies for "Legal Times", he worked as an editorial writer for "The Washington Post", concentrating on legal affairs from 1997 to 2006. Wittes has also written for "The Atlantic" and "The New Republic," and has contributed regular columns to "Slate", "Wilson Quarterly", "The Weekly  Standard", "Policy Review", and "First Things". In 2010 Wittes, along with Robert Chesney and Jack Goldsmith, co-found "Lawfare", a blog dedicated to analyzing how the actions of the American government to protect the nation interacted with American law. In a post on "Lawfare" on January 28, 2017, reacting to Executive Order 13769, Wittes characterized the Trump administration as "malevolence tempered by incompetence." This description received widespread attention and re-use, including its being featured in a "New York Times" op-ed by Paul Krugman. In 2020 Wittes launched the show "In Lieu of Fun" with journalist Kate Klonick. Conceived  as an alternative to the presidential briefings on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic the show aired live daily with Klonick and Wittes vowing to continue streaming until the pandemic was over. The show altered its format in 2021 to air only within the weekday and added Scott J. Shapiro and Genevieve DellaFerra as co-hosts. The show heavily featured both guests and audience participation and was often political in nature. Personal life. He is married to Tamara Cofman Wittes, a writer and former diplomat who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs at the United States Department of State