After a Historic Election, Asha Rangappa Looks Ahead

The Yale Legal Scholar Talks 11th-Hour Declassifications, Special Prosecutors, and the Damage Done to America’s National Security Institutions

The title question for Zócalo’s event—“What Do We Do Now?,” posed just days after the historic presidential election of 2020 was finally decided—is also the last line of a 1972 Robert Redford movie, The Candidate. It’s spoken by Redford’s character, who unexpectedly wins a big election—and realizes he has no idea what to do next.

“Unlike Robert Redford,” said event moderator Julian E. Barnes, national security reporter at the New York Times, guest Asha Rangappa, a Yale national security law scholar and former FBI counterintelligence agent, “knows what we do now.”

Barnes …

Only You Can Defeat Vladimir Putin

Russian Interference With America Is Profound and Systematic, So the Best Self-Defense Is We, the People

Vladimir Putin has done a masterful job of sowing hatred and confusion in the West. By tampering with elections, hijacking social media platforms, and cranking out reams of bogus conspiracy …

How Americans Can Keep a Closer Eye on Spy Agencies

Democracy's Checks and Balances Are Catching up With the Shadowy World of Intelligence-Gathering

Since its beginnings, the United States has deployed secret services to advance the nation’s interests. Today, 17 major organizations make up America’s so-called Intelligence Community. From 1787 until 1975, the …

I Could Never Talk to My Dad About How I Saved Him From Prison

He Never Told Me About His Shady Betting Ring, but I Covered His Tracks Anyway

I stood frozen with two of my sisters, Donna and Elaine, as we stared at the millions of pieces of little white paper that were lying in front of us …

What Are Three Teenagers Supposed to Do When the FBI Raids Their House?

The Wild Story of My Dad’s Mysterious Scraps of Paper, the Agents Who Wanted Them, and Our Race to Find Them First

A Rangers hockey game was on TV as I folded the warm pile of laundry splayed out on the couch. It was a brisk, fall Saturday afternoon in the suburban …