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The President And The Rule Of Law
In 1977, journalist David Frost asked Richard Nixon about his approval of a plan to use “dirty tricks” (burglaries, wiretaps, etc.) against groups opposed to him. It was clear that the plan was illegal, and in fact it was one of the acts that led to Nixon’s resignation to avoid impeachment. Here was the exchange:……
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A Day of Shame and a Day of Pride
Friday was a day for Americans to be ashamed of our government. We’re a nation of immigrants and a nation of refugees. Except for the Native Americans, all of us came here from somewhere else and many of us came here to escape war and religious persecution. And we say we’re a moral people and……
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“American Carnage:” President Trump’s Inaugural Address
The phrase “American carnage,” until now, would have evoked for me the Civil War, the great contest between the North and the South that led to the deaths of more than 750,000 Americans, Northerners and Southerners, blacks and whites. Near the end of the war, Abraham Lincoln, by then aged almost beyond recognition by the……
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President Trump and the Unwritten Constitution
If there’s one thing the election of Donald Trump has shown, it’s the strength of our formal political institutions. Do you disagree? Consider that in many states at many times in history, a democratically elected person so manifestly unfit for office would not have been allowed to take office. Yet there is no real risk……
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Russian Hacking: Trump’s Plan B
President-elect Donald Trump has now had a classified briefing from the Director of National Intelligence and the directors of the FBI, CIA, and NSA on the Russian hacking issue, and we have had the chance to read the unclassified version of the report. What can we conclude?