Bob Bauer served as White House Counsel to President Obama. In 2013, the President named Bob to be Co-Chair of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. He is a Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law, as well as the co-director of the university's Legislative and Regulatory Process Clinic.
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Just as presidents respond in various ways to norms, so, too, do they react to changes in the legal structure with direct political and governing implications.
A formal congressional inquiry into grounds for impeachment would be a more constitutionally sound response to an unfit president than the internal "resistance" described in the anonymous New York Times op-ed.
If McGahn is not what the president would have preferred in a counsel to the Trump administration, McGahn has clearly succeeded to a significant degree as the chief White House lawyer in a Republican administration.
Attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge that is compelling only because of the story he has to tell, along with other evidence, about the way that Donald Trump operates.
The New York Times reports that White House Counsel Don McGahn has interviewed extensively with the special counsel, cooperating with the president’s consent but perhaps more extensively than Mr. Trump may have anticipated.
Richard Nixon’s fall came after it became clear that he had “broken faith” with core public expectations of presidential leadership. Donald Trump appears headed for the same fate.
Two complementary articles in the most recent issue of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics assess the role of the president’s legal advisers in times of crisis.