Potential Post-Trump Reforms Reforming executive power after Trump Next: Campaign Legal Advisers

The Context

Many recent disputes have raised the prospect that Congress, in a post-Trump era, will seek to tighten legal limits on executive power to enforce previous norms of presidential behavior.

The Question

What sorts of new legal restrictions on presidential authority, if any, would you view as constitutional and be inclined to sign into law on these topics?

• Ability of a president to declare a national emergency and activate various standby powers, and to invoke national-security exceptions to various legal prohibitions

• The ability of a president to order the removal of a special prosecutor appointed to scrutinize potential high-level executive branch wrongdoing

• The ability of a president or presidential candidate to choose not to make public his or her tax returns

• The ability of a president or presidential candidate to accept non-financial assistance from a foreign government in an election

• The ability of a president to choose not to divest from significant business holdings or place them into a blind trust, and to engage in business transactions with foreign governments while in office

• The ability of a president to hire close family members for White House positions

• The ability of a president to intervene in Justice Department law enforcement actions, including in matters like antitrust and directing the opening or closing of investigations into political allies or opponents

• The ability of a president to override recommended denials of security clearances

• The ability of a president to use the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to install someone as acting agency or department head who was not in the normal order of succession for that position

• The application of the Freedom of Information Act requests to White House records, which are currently exempt

• The ability of a president to pardon or dangle a potential pardon at someone in a self-protective context — such as an investigation in which the president, one of his family members, or a campaign or close business associate is a target, subject, or witness — without disclosing to Congress communications and materials about the pardon, including evidence against the recipient