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Minnesota Law Now is a new podcast from the University of Minnesota Law School that brings together some of today’s most insightful legal scholars in conversation about law, policy, current events, and the ideas that shape our world.
[music]
-Hi. I'm William McGeveran,
Dean of the University
of Minnesota Law School
and William S. Pattee Professor of Law.
Welcome to our new podcast,
Minnesota Law Now.
How powerful is
the American presidency, really?
Just as important, who can hold
that power accountable?
In their book,
The U.S. Presidency:
Power, Responsibility, and Accountability,
Tom Sullivan and Richard Painter
examine the evolving state
of presidential power
in the United States,
how it has expanded over time,
how it is constrained,
and what responsibility
must mean in the modern era.
This is Minnesota Law Now.
I'm William McGeveran, Dean
and William S. Pattee Professor
of Law at the University
of Minnesota Law School.
I'll be your host for today's podcast.
Joining me today
are two extraordinarily accomplished
legal scholars
and the authors of The U.S. Presidency:
Power, Responsibility,
and Accountability.
Welcome, Tom Sullivan and Richard Painter.
-Thank you, Bill.
-Thank you.
-Tom Sullivan, among many
other impressive credentials,
is my predecessor
as the dean of this fine law school,
and then went on to be
the executive vice president
and provost of the University of Minnesota
and the president
of the University of Vermont,
where he is now emeritus and president
and a professor of public policy and law.
Richard Painter is closer to home.
He's currently here at Minnesota Law
as the S. Walter Ritchie
Professor of Corporate Law.
He also is a former White House
ethics attorney under George W. Bush.
Together, in their book,
they took a clear-eyed look
at how presidential authority
has grown over time through war,
crisis, and political gridlock,
and what meaningful responsibility
and accountability require today.
Tom, Richard, welcome
to Minnesota Law Now.
-Thank you.
-Pleasure to be here.
Thank you.
-In the inaugural episode
of Minnesota Law Now,
I spoke with two
of our other colleagues,
Nick Bednar and Alan Rozenshtein,
who are both professors on the faculty,
and they're studying presidential powers.
They laid a great framework
for the discussion,
so I'm thrilled to continue
with both of you.
Your lens is as much historical
as anything else here.
Let me start with a question
for both of you.
Why is now the time
to write a book like this?
-Actually, Dean, Richard
and I got this contract
from Cambridge University Press
in October of 2023.
In all candor, neither of us
thought that we would know
of a second Trump presidency,
so this was not directed
towards President Trump in any way.
We turned in the manuscript
for this book 10 days
after President Trump had
his second inauguration.
The end of January of '25.
We were able to get
page-proof galleys back in June,
and the press permitted us
to make some substantial changes
in light of the activity.
-A lot had happened
in the intervening six months.
-Indeed, which, as you know,
is not typical for page-proof reading.
-No.
-Probably 50 to 70 new pages
or revisions took place.
Then we turned the final manuscript
in as the Supreme Court went out
of session in the end of June of '25.
That's the evolution of the book.
It wasn't designed
because of a particular president,
but rather because we saw
this very large transformation of power
from the Congress to the presidency
over the 250 years or so.
-Yes, and I think that arc
comes across very clearly in the book.
This is not a new set of challenges,
although it may be newly acute
at this moment for various reasons.
-Yes.
-Richard, what's
the biggest historical thing you learned
in the process of writing
this book as you look back?
You were already an expert in the field.
What did you find out about how this
had evolved over time that took you
by surprise or that you thought
was thought-provoking
for today?
-The expansion of presidential power
has been most acute
in situations of national emergency
and crisis.
We saw President Lincoln suspend
habeas corpus and even violate
a federal district court order
from Justice Taney's
sitting by designation,
telling him he couldn't do that.
We saw,
after World War I, during the Red Scare,
the Palmer raids,
where the attorney general
would send federal agents across
the country to arrest immigrants
who were suspected
of dangerous ideas,
of being communists.
We saw a dramatic expansion
of presidential power
under President Roosevelt,
first with the New Deal,
and then during World War II,
with the interment
of Japanese American citizens,
in turn, simply because
of their ancestry.
Then the Vietnam era
and Richard Nixon, 9/11,
under President George W.
Bush, and the torture memos.
Then, of course, President Trump.
Now, here with President Trump,
some of these emergencies
may be more contrived than real,
but that emergency powers
is often used as the excuse to expand
presidential power,
and it can be very dangerous.
-Let's talk a little bit
about the mechanics of that.
We've seen,
even just in the last week
before recording this,
the Supreme Court reach a ruling
about the tariffs that were imposed under
an emergency power that Congress
had granted for economic purposes
in the 1970s.
When presidents are expanding that power,
in emergencies or otherwise,
what are the mechanisms
that you see them using to effectuate
that expansion?
-First, I think we need to go back
in history because this is a book
that we're talking about today
that's really talking
about the interrelationship
between history and politics
and law, in this case, constitutional law,
and how they interrelate
in the lived experience.
I think this goes to your question.
Clearly, the founders wanted
to set up a constitutional structure
or a Constitutional Republic,
with very significant oversight checks
and balances.
Article 1 of Congress was said
by the founders to be predominant
over the presidency,
and hence this rigorous oversight
through separation of powers,
checks and balances,
checking mechanisms
to make sure that we didn't get
presidential overreach.
We have a constitution that builds
that in and a strong history
that supports it.
As Richard noted, over time,
that has transformed
because of the way Congress has delegated
or not delegated powers to the president
through their oversight
and legislative responsibility.
For example, when we talk
about how does one acquire powers
as a president,
we see that Congress
can delegate explicitly.
Your point about the tariff case,
that was largely about direct,
clear delegation by Congress or not.
Implicit delegation
or through inaction or acquiescence,
which we see
an abundance of in the Congress today
and the polarization in Washington.
Finally, on the president's side,
the Article 2 side,
we see inherited power,
acquired power
through either expressed,
implied delegation or inaction.
We also see what we sometimes refer to
as grabbed power.
When Congress,
through inaction or acquiescence,
doesn't speak clearly,
then the president will
pick up and,
of course, cite his predecessor as,
"They did it, I get to do it."
That's how we get power
delegated explicitly or implicitly,
or acquired without oversight by Congress.
-In the book, you talk about this,
and it's a theme in your answer, Tom.
Richard, this tends
to be a one-way ratchet,
doesn't it?
In other words, when the power expands,
you don't often see it moving
in the other backwards direction.
Are there successful examples
we can point to where it did,
where the president expanded, and then
that power diminished
because either Congress or the courts
or some other external factor
moved them the other direction,
or does it always go one way?
-There was a brief period
during the Carter-Mondale administration
when the United States government,
in reaction to Watergate,
both executive branch and the Congress,
were unified in seeking
to limit presidential power.
With the Ethics in Government Act in 1978,
the United States Office
of Government Ethics
was established.
Even more important was a provision
for an independent counsel law
that would be in place for 20 years,
that would provide that there would be
an independent counsel appointed
by the Justice Department,
supervised by a three-judge panel
of the United States Court of Appeals
in DC.
This independent counsel would investigate
matters similar to Watergate,
so we wouldn't have the situation
where the independent counsel is fired,
as Archie Cox was fired in 1973.
This timeframe,
brief as it was,
led to a lot of reform legislation,
including that independent counsel law.
Unfortunately,
we started to backtrack
during the Reagan years,
where the Justice Department
again became more political.
Eventually, the independent counsel law
was abandoned in 1999
when both parties were upset
at different independent counsels.
Yes, we have reacted
to abuses of presidential power at times
by pulling back.
That's what we need to do today.
-Bill, I might add if I could.
-Please.
-In the present,
we have some very good examples.
Last week's tariff decision
rebuking the president
on an assertion of power
that the court said he didn't have.
An earlier decision by the Supreme Court
with regard to the National Guard
in Chicago and other cities,
where they said under
the statute, the president
did not have the authority.
There were preconditions
to do that, which were not met.
We also have the example
of the early second term
of President Trump,
the Garcia decision,
where, while the Supreme Court gave
the president more power
in immigration and refugee issues,
they did order him to be returned,
although in a rather soft way,
rather than forthwith,
which is the term most courts
use to facilitate.
Importantly, in that decision,
they have a one-line noting
the importance of the due process clause.
Before the government can interfere
with your life or your liberty,
there must be
a process due under the circuit.
We have three new cases.
I would also mention back,
informal oversight,
that five Republican senators went
to Richard Nixon
and told him he was going to be convicted
in impeachment if he did not resign.
That was informal,
but it was very effective
the next day, on August 8th, 1974,
he resigned.
There have been these movements,
these checks that we can point to,
although not adequate enough today.
-Sure.
Let's talk a little bit more
about some of these institutional checks.
You've mentioned both of you,
Congress and the courts.
If the Article 2 is expanding,
it's Article 1 and Article 3
that are going to create the entities
that are most likely to push back.
At the moment, we see
isolated examples,
but also lots of times when both
the judiciary and Congress are willing
to allow
for certain expansions of the presidency.
Of course, that's been true historically,
as you show.
What are the most effective tools
that each of them has?
In the case of Congress, what are
the most effective tools that Congress
would have right now if the election
changes things or if ideas change
about the presidency?
What would Congress now do to put
some of the genie back
in the bottle of presidential power
if they wanted to?
-Quite frankly, as you mentioned, Dean,
we have midterms coming up
in eight or nine months.
The political pundits think
that's going to show some correction,
perhaps,
that will give clear signals,
whether it's a significant majority
for the Democrats on the one side
or less so for the Republicans.
Oversight, more oversight.
-Let's talk about oversight, meaning what?
-From Congress.
Holding hearings,
which obviously are very much related
to ultimate legislation,
to bring back some checks and balances.
Justice Gorsuch's concurring
opinion is very strong,
almost admonishing
our Congress, Article 1,
for the lack of its oversight
and the lack of precision
in the delegation
or inaction of the court.
That's very important.
Number two, of course, the people.
The people are our sovereigns.
It is not the Congress or the president.
The people have an opportunity
with midterms and then,
of course, presidential elections in '28
to really express their views one way
or the other.
That's where the people
play a role, the ballot box,
Congress oversight,
and ultimate legislation to correct.
I see over the weekend,
a number of Congress persons
have expressed some sympathy
for the tariff decision
because it's like Mitch McConnell,
a former majority and minority leader,
for example, and the present chair
of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Senator Grassley from Iowa,
both said, oh, this will help Article 1
restore its constitution,
so maybe a turning point.
-For sure.
Richard?
-I think the tariffs case
is a very good example
of where we could have bipartisan support
for reining in presidential power.
The concept of no taxation
without representation
goes back to the founding
of this country, and indeed,
in English law, the Magna Carta,
where King John was told in 1215
that he could not impose
taxes on his noblemen.
He needed to go to parliament.
If King John couldn't do that in 1215,
I don't think that King wannabe
or President Donald John Trump
can do that in 2026.
No taxation without representation
was a fundamental battle cry
of the American Revolution,
and that was about a tariff.
They were taxing all the tea
from Holland and everywhere else,
trying to force us to buy
that East India Company tea,
while the East India Company
was bribing the members of parliament.
We had nobody in parliament,
so the Bostonians tossed the tea
into Boston Harbor.
That was about a tariff.
A tariff is a tax,
and Article 1 of the Constitution gives
the Congress the power to impose taxes.
It's really quite shocking for me,
having been in the Republican Party
for 30 years,
to watch a president
from the Republican Party advocate
for an aggressive form of taxation
and think he can do it on his own
without the approval of Congress.
Of course, he's not going to get
Senator Grassley's support
because all the farmers down in Iowa
are being hurt as much as the farmers
in Minnesota
by this tariff regime.
By the way, the last time Congress voted
for a broad-based tariff package was 1930,
Smoot-Hawley,
and it threw the Republicans.
-We know what happened there.
-Yes.
-We know what happened there.
10 years of depression
and the Republican Party out of power
for almost two decades.
-We've talked a lot
about the institutional framework here.
Obviously, when we're talking
about politics and law,
that's going to be at the forefront.
Tom, you mentioned voters.
Another area we haven't touched on much,
but the book does,
is how much of this
is about responsibility
and ethics and norms.
Richard, you've been the ethics lawyer
in the room where it happens,
and you've seen these discussions.
When those discussions happen,
how much is it rooted
in what the law requires
and in some
of these institutional mechanisms?
How much is it rooted
in values or tradition
or people's understanding
of what the boundaries ought to be,
regardless of what the law says?
-Both are important.
First is explaining to the president
and people working for the president
what under the law you can do,
what you can't do.
You can't take any gifts
or profits and benefits
from foreign governments under
the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
That's just not allowed.
There are certain things
that aren't allowed.
Then there are other things
that technically might be allowed.
For example, doing something that's going
to enrich a business that's owned
by your adult son or daughter.
That's a situation
that might technically be allowed.
It's not a violation
of the conflict of interest statute.
I would tell the people
in the Bush White House,
okay, you won't get indicted
by the Justice Department,
but you're going to get indicted
by the Washington Post.
Now, this is back
when the Washington Post
actually reported real news.
-Tom, what do you see
as the function of norms
and how well it's been working
to restrain executive power,
and how much it might have to do
in the future with restraining it?
-Two answers to that, Dean.
First, we should also mention the courts.
-Yes.
-Your question posed
the Congress oversight and the people.
The courts are playing a very large role.
-Absolutely.
-Our Article 3,
responsibility of judicial review.
What we know in the second term
of the Trump administration,
the district courts
have been ruling against him.
Almost 400 cases have
now been filed in this last year.
Almost 75% have been enjoined
in some fashion or another or paused.
Our courts, through judicial review,
have that Article 3 responsibility.
We're seeing that occurring
in particularly our lower federal courts.
We mentioned
the Supreme Court's case,
of course, on those three instances.
-It's happening, by the way,
with judges appointed
by a wide range of presidents.
-Exactly.
All the way
back to President Reagan,
we've had a couple
of very strong opinions.
George H. Bush,
George W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan.
It is not political.
-Even the first Trump
administration judges
have frequently, in the lower courts,
been voting
against expanded executive power.
-Exactly right.
As we go up, we see
that some of that lower court
is being reversed by the courts of appeal.
Then there was a statistic
before the tariff case of last week
that the Supreme Court,
in the second term,
has had 39 cases dealing with,
whether regular docket
or shadow docket,
36 of which the Trump
administration has won.
I guess that's now changed
with the tariff decision.
We see that third branch,
Article 3, being another check.
I want to make a point here.
It's our trial court judges
in the federal system that make
the findings of fact
and are the determiners
of the credibility of the witnesses
and the evidence.
There is an appellate rule that says
appellate courts cannot reverse
district courts unless they're clear-
-Abuse and discretion.
--arbitrary and capricious.
I'm seeing
over the course of a number of years
in certain appellate court
and Supreme Court,
where the trial record is disregarded,
and we go right to the theory
or the policy or the politics.
That is a clear violation,
I believe, of the rule of law
and due process.
We want to ensure that our courts
remember that it's the trial court judges
who are overwhelmed right now
with all of these cases,
writ of habeas corpus cases, particularly.
That they are the finders of fact,
and they decide
the credibility of those witnesses.
If courts of appeal in the Supreme Court
should not be under the law
and due process, a part of that reversal.
-You have Congress
with tools at its disposal,
a few of which it's been using of late.
There are historical examples
that you talk
about in the book of other times
when they've used them.
You have the same with the courts.
Most every action that this administration
has taken that could be characterized
as an attempt to expand executive power,
someone has brought it to court,
and there's been an opportunity
for judicial reckoning about those things.
Then you have these general norms,
these background principles
of how the separation of powers
is supposed to work.
Where do you see the biggest cracks,
the biggest stress in those things
right now?
-I think there's a difference
that we should make clear
in the constitutional
and federal statutory obligations
and rights versus norms.
I think normally
when we think norms, we think
expectations of the community,
of the people,
prior precedent,
subtle expectations,
values ingrained in.
This is the normative way of doing this,
even though we have
a formal set of structures of constitution
and federal principles.
To connect, as our book
tries to do with history,
politics, and law,
we can look at the public opinion polls
in the last year
or so and how they're tracking
certain things.
Right now, the president
is substantially underwater
on every category,
particularly those that he campaigned,
we believe, successfully on.
That's telling us that the norms,
the expectations of the people,
the prior precedent that was set,
settledness of our community
and values and norms
is been disrupted.
I think there's a difference,
and we should recognize
formal law
and then the norms of the community,
which goes
back to the people's sovereignty.
-The book makes that really clear
and talks about how they interrelate,
just as you just said.
-Exactly.
-I think that one
of the fundamental issues
that we're confronting is defining
the relationship between law and politics.
Of course, in a representative democracy,
politics will ultimately define the law,
the statutes that are passed
by an elected legislature and judges
who are appointed by presidents
confirmed by the Senate.
There's a relationship
between law and politics,
but we can go to an extreme.
Both the extreme left
and the extreme right have done this
with the idea that all law is,
is politics. As Carl Schmitt,
the famous German legal theorist,
wrote in the 1920s in his essay,
The Concept of the Political,
which is still cited frequently, sometimes
by scholars today from the far left,
with approval,
he argued that all law is, is politics,
and politics is about who the friend is
and who the enemy is,
of his country, Germany.
That also the executive,
Carl Schmitt argued,
because he was elected
by the entire country,
the executive, the president of Germany,
or the chancellor appointed
by the president, should be able
to make exceptions to the law.
This is a very popular theory.
Then, in 1933, Carl Schmitt
became a member of the Nazi party,
and a new chancellor was appointed.
We know exactly what happened.
This concept of the political,
that all law is, is politics,
and that the two
are completely converged,
is extremely dangerous.
It's popular on the far left
and the far right.
We certainly see this today
with people telling the president
of the United States he can disobey
an order of the United States
Supreme Court.
Just two years ago,
I read an essay
by two liberal law professors,
one at Harvard, one at Yale,
saying President Biden
should ignore
the orders of the Supreme Court.
Now we see Vice President Vance
explicitly saying that Donald Trump,
because he is elected
by all of the people,
has the right to ignore
the orders of the Supreme Court.
This extremely dangerous idea
that could take a country down
that very, very treacherous path,
where Carl Schmitt's theories
led Germany in the 1930s.
-I would also add,
maybe to make a correction
in some of our colleagues in the media.
-Yes. There's a few things
that should be corrected there,
I think.
-We, political scientists,
particularly like to talk about mandates
and landslides.
This president likes to as well.
The truth of the matter
is, he was elected,
in terms of the popular vote,
and we know, of course,
the electoral college is quite different.
He was elected under 50% of the vote,
49.8% of the vote.
From a normative standpoint,
to use your term earlier,
this was not a mandate.
This was not a landslide.
This wasn't even majority of the people
who elected him.
We need to remember
that in context of this power assertion,
the people sent me to do X and Y.
Actually, it was as close
as you can get on the popular side.
I might just mention,
to go back to the history point,
the founders
were very clear that they wanted
an indirect method of electing
a president. Hence, the electoral college.
Why?
Why not a popular direct election?
The reason was the founders
were concerned that a president,
if elected by the people,
would be too close
to the people,
and that we would get and slide
over perhaps into a dictatorial,
tyrannical regime like we fought
a revolutionary war against the British.
We have this interesting dichotomy
in history where the founders
were very clear.
We did not want
this popularization of a president.
We wanted
independence or distance
setting up the indirect electoral college.
Anti-democratic, to be sure.
It's played mischief throughout
our history in terms of several presidents
have won the presidency
through the electoral college
and never received the popular votes.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,
and George W.
in the first term, et cetera.
We can go on.
-There's lots of examples.
Even the examples where it goes
into the House of Representatives
and all the rest of that.
You talk a lot about history in your book
because it's what tells us
how we got where we are now.
It's what educates us
about the fact that this is a,
as you point out, 250-year-long process
that we've been in to try and evolve
towards the situation we're in right now.
Let's turn, as we finish our conversation,
to look forward a little bit.
What's the one thing
that you would like to see,
the one change
or reform you would like to see
that would help reset this balance,
recalibrate this balance
the way you think it ought to be set?
If you could wave a magic wand
and get one big change,
Richard, what would you pick?
-I think we have to elect
presidents who understand
the importance of restraint
on presidential power.
-The informal restraint.
-Formal and informal.
When I listen to debates
between different candidates
in either party, it's always,
"My first day in office,
I'm going to sign
an executive order doing
X, Y, and Z."
I'd like to hear a candidate say,
"On my first day in office,
I will propose to Congress
that Congress pass a bill
doing X, Y, and Z.
Then I will work with Congress
to get that bill passed."
I think we need to think seriously
about the character
and the integrity of the people
we are considering for the office
of the President of the United States.
We also may have to consider
some constitutional amendments.
The Supreme Court's decision
in Trump versus the United States
was devastating.
This is the decision of the court
that the president has immunity
from criminal prosecution
for his official acts,
it's a very strong presumption
of immunity.
This is an extremely dangerous decision.
If the Supreme Court is not going
to change its mind on that,
we need a presidential accountability
amendment
to our constitution
that would turn that around.
A more radical suggestion
that has been talked about is
whether the United States Department
of Justice should be set up
as an independent fourth branch.
In Minnesota and in many states,
we elect our attorney general.
The attorney general
does not kowtow to the governor.
Keith Ellison makes up
his mind what he's going to do
as attorney general
of the state of Minnesota,
even though he happens to be
of the same political party
as the governor,
but he's elected independently.
I don't know how much longer we can go
through a situation where we have
attorneys general,
like Pam Bondi right now,
who appears to be taking orders
from the President of the United States
about who to prosecute,
who not to prosecute,
and maybe taking orders
from the White House
about matters such as the Epstein files.
If we can't have
an independent Justice Department
within Article 2,
which we have had in the past,
and it has worked,
but if presidents are going to abuse
their power over the Justice Department,
we may have to consider
an elected attorney general
as a separate branch.
-A structural change that would end up
reducing presidential power by reducing
their influence over decisions
around prosecution
and decisions around the other things
the Justice Department does.
-That would take
a constitutional amendment,-
-Yes, definitely.
--which is very challenging
under the amendment,
which requires
two-thirds of the House vote,
two-thirds of the Senate vote,
and three-quarters of the states.
A very high bar.
Bill, I would also add,
going back and reinforcing
in a structural way,
Richard's point,
more oversight by the Congress.
Take back
your responsibility under Article 1.
We've had too much
of inaction or acquiescence.
This is an institutional
and constitutional responsibility
of our Congress,
our representatives
in the House and the Senate.
Specifically, I think
they need to address,
and picking up on Richard's point,
we need clearer definitions
about what is a national emergency,
what is national security,
what does the Constitution mean
in the interaction of Article 1,
Congress declares war,
and the president under Article 2
is the commander-in-chief
on the ground to implement.
We need a clearer definition
and understanding of those relationships
between Congress's power
to declare war and what
does that really mean.
I think this comes
back to more congressional oversight.
That's their constitutional responsibility
that is lacking today.
-It's interesting to me,
and we'll close on this point,
but the main things each of you mentioned,
not so much splitting off
the Department of Justice to have
an independent political election,
but many of the things
you mentioned are things
that can be done today
under the structures that exist
if the people
holding those roles behave differently.
-Exactly right.
-I believe so.
With respect to the Department of Justice,
we should have Congress pass
an independent counsel law similar
to what we had for 20 years
after Watergate.
The Supreme Court of the United States
upheld that law in 1988.
The question is
whether the Supreme Court would today.
There was a powerful dissent
from Justice Scalia.
Some liberal constitutional law scholars
who appear to be enamored
of presidential power,
including Akhil Amar,
have said that that might have been
unconstitutional,
the independent counsel statute,
and he did so in his latest 2018 testimony
in front of the Senate.
I'm concerned that we might not be able
to re-establish
an independent Justice Department.
I hope we can within Article 2,
without having to go to the people
and try to pass a constitutional amendment
to address this.
We need Congress to be on board,
and we need the Supreme Court
to recognize that without
an independent Justice Department,
at least a special prosecutor
who can't just be fired by the president--
-Which could be done.
The idea of separate election
requires a constitutional amendment.
The idea of implementing
an independent counsel is a statute
that Congress could
within the current
constitutional structure.
-Could easily do,
and we could, if the Supreme Court
is going to rule that unconstitutional,
have a narrower constitutional amendment
that not only overturned
the idea of presidential immunity
from criminal prosecution,
but said that there must be
an independent counsel,
that Congress has the power
to appoint an independent counsel.
The president
can't simply fire Archibald Cox,
1973, or any independent counsel today.
-One point to make
that correction in history.
We have from Watergate,
the John Mitchell reign
as Attorney General,
who actually went to jail
in light of Watergate matters,
and the next generation of presidents,
with President Gerry Ford and Ed Levi,
former dean of the University
of Chicago Law School,
president of the University of Chicago,
who came in.
Those were the Watergate reforms.
We saw that kind of correction
in the Department of Justice,
from a very lawless Department of Justice
in Watergate
to ultimately Ed Levi's reign,
which really brought the reforms back.
I'm afraid that we're losing
all of those Watergate reforms today.
-Griffin Bell under President Carter.
-Jimmy Carter.
-I have to say, this conversation
does give me some hope
insofar as what you've talked about
are ways that if elected officials
and appointed judges do see
the problem the way you have seen it,
if they read your book,
that they can go ahead
and take some actions that would restore
some of this balance that you're striving
for in the way that you describe
how the presidency ought to be structured.
I thank you both for contributing
to this conversation today.
The book is The U.S. Presidency:
Power, Responsibility, and Accountability.
Each of those words ends up
being really important in the way you talk
about it, power, responsibility,
and accountability.
If you want a clear, grounded
guide to how presidential power
really works
and how we keep it accountable,
this book is really, I think,
well worth your time.
We're going to continue this discussion
later on today at an in-person talk
with students,
which Minnesota Law will be hosting.
A recording of that discussion
will be available on our website for those
who are listening
to the podcast at a later time.
For now, thank you, Tom, Richard.
Thank you both for being here,
and thank you for listening
to the Minnesota Law Now podcast.
Subscribe and share,
and we will see you next time.
-Our pleasure. Thank you.
-Thank you, Bill.
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