After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency
(Lawfare Institute, 2020)
Featuring the authors Jack Goldsmith (@jacklgoldsmith), Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Bob Bauer, Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence, New York University School of Law; with comments by J. Michael Luttig (@judgeluttig), former Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; moderated by Ilya Shapiro (@ishapiro), Director, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute.
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In their timely new book, Bob Bauer (also former White House counsel under President Obama) and Jack Goldsmith (also former assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush) provide a comprehensive roadmap for reforming the presidency. They offer more than 50 concrete proposals concerning
- conflicts of interest,
- foreign influence on elections,
- abuse of the pardon power,
- assaults on the press,
- law enforcement independence,
- special counsel procedures,
- FBI investigations of presidents and campaigns,
- the role of the White House counsel,
- war powers,
- executive branch vacancies,
- domestic emergency powers,
- how one administration should examine possible crimes by the prior administration, and more.
Each set of reforms is preceded by rich descriptions of relevant history, background law, and norms. All the proposals are prefaced by a chapter that explains how Donald Trump—and his predecessors—conducted the presidency in ways that justify these reforms. Commenting on them will be J. Michael Luttig, who is not only a former federal judge and U.S. Supreme Court contender but also ran the Office of Legal Counsel under President George H. W. Bush.
Additional Resources
- “Six Post‐Trump Reforms to Help Protect the Rule of Law,” by Bob Bauer & Jack Goldsmith
- “How to Reform the Pardon Power,” by Bob Bauer & Jack Goldsmith
- “The U.S. Has Neither Systemic Voter Fraud Nor Voter Suppression,” by Ilya Shapiro
- “The FBI Needs to Be Reformed,” by Bob Bauer & Jack Goldsmith
After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency
In After Trump: Reconstructing the Presidency, Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith provide a comprehensive roadmap for reform of the presidency in the post‐Trump era. In fourteen chapters they offer more than fifty concrete proposals concerning presidential conflicts of interest, foreign influence on elections, pardon power abuse, assaults on the press, law enforcement independence, Special Counsel procedures, FBI investigations of presidents and presidential campaigns, the role of the White House Counsel, war powers, control of nuclear weapons, executive branch vacancies, domestic emergency powers, how one administration should examine possible crimes by the president of a prior administration, and more.
