Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
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States are the first line of defense in election-related disputes. But will they be able to prevent a constitutional crisis?
The secretary of state has accidentally shed light on the burdensome restrictions that the State Department puts on its overseas employees and their families.
Our latest FOIA litigation targets two sets of survey results that should shed light on whether the Trump administration has put pressure on intelligence analysts.
In the end, President Trump has probably succeeded in his effort to keep his financial records from Congress through the November election. But if his goal was to prevent the judiciary from enforcing congressional subpoenas affecting him, he has likely failed.
The president has a legal obligation to file a report with Congress on legal authorities connected to ongoing U.S. military operations. He has shirked that duty.
National Guard troops and federal law enforcement were deployed across the nation’s capital without the consent of the city—a reminder of the unique relationship between Washington, D.C., and the federal government.
If President Trump wants to follow through on his threats to deploy the military around the country, he may have to push one of America’s oldest emergency laws to its limits.