Debates over the proper scope of executive power in the United States have been a feature of U.S. law and politics dating back to before the nation’s founding. Article II of the Constitution vests the president with “the executive power” and the power to act as the military’s Commander in Chief, but the post-9/11 presidency has been characterized as a striking expansion of executive power, particularly in the area of national security.
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The Trump administration is asserting a new and extreme theory of executive privilege, under which the executive branch has absolute constitutional authority to protect and further the president’s constitutional authority to assert that privilege.
A presidential candidate’s promising a law enforcement outcome against an individual should be unacceptable—even to those who fervently wish to see Donald Trump in the defendant’s chair in federal court.
These cases are fact specific and frequently are considerably more complicated than they might seem at first blush.
The manner in which the Trump administration has installed Cuccinelli as acting director of the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services may not violate the plain letter of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. But it can’t be reconciled with the law’s spirit.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has denied in part and granted in part a motion for a preliminary injunction against the government's construction of a border wall using funds reprogrammed by the Defense Department, enjoining the secretaries of defense, treasury and homeland security from taking action to construct a wall along certain sections of the U.S.-Mexico border. The opinion is available here and below.
No one defends the Mueller report’s actual reasoning, and there are good reasons why alternate arguments for the report’s conclusions did not make it into the document.
President Trump’s consultation with the Justice Department regarding potential pardons for war crimes has raised concerns. But history teaches that the presidency has been served well by having the attorney general as chief clemency adviser.
It is unclear what authority the president has to direct former White House counsel Don McGahn, now a private citizen, to go along with the executive branch’s legal position in refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena.
The president wanted to let the Commerce Department cut Huawei off from U.S. components. His order may do quite a bit more.
Though Democratic leadership remains hesitant, members of the House Committee on the Judiciary are voicing support for an impeachment inquiry. But the moral urgency of impeachment can only remain ripe for so long.