Sally Yates’s testimony yesterday calls into yet greater doubt the effectiveness of White House Counsel Don McGahn.

“The opinions of judges, no less than executives and publicists, often suffer the infirmity of confusing the issue of a power's validity with the cause it is invoked to promote, of confounding the permanent executive office with its temporary occupant,” wrote the esteemed Robert Jackson in the first paragraph of the most celebrated opinion in the most famous presidential power decision in Supreme Court history.

I agree with Susan and Ben that an independent national commission to investigate the Russia matter is, at this time, unrealistic. But I’m unconvinced by their argument that a select congressional committee—a specially formed committee in one or both houses of Congress, with special staffing and resources—would be an improvement on the three committees now investigating the matter.

The going dark debate has spread to Europe. The commercial growth of encryption and a wave of terrorist attacks have spurred new laws to detect and disrupt terrorism. This article reviews the most recent encryption-related legislation in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland. The article discusses the legislative debates, as well as aims to achieve coordination at the EU level. Although Europe has so far disavowed banning encryption or mandating pre-installed backdoors, several countries have enacted statutes authorizing compelled decryption. The article concludes by briefly comparing the European approach to the American legal regime.