Benjamin Wittes

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.

Wittes brings a non-lawyer's perspective to legal journalism, which has been his primary pursuit. After a stint covering the U.S. Justice Department and federal regulatory agencies for Legal Times, he was an editorial writer (1997–2006) for The Washington Post, concentrating on legal affairs.

Benjamin Wittes (born November 5, 1969) is a 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, which is devoted to the discussion of U.S. national security choices. 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. He is also a co-host of the Rational Security podcast.

Wittes was born in 1969 in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended a Jewish day school in New York City, and graduated from Oberlin College in 1990.