This week the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Trump v. United States, a case that asks whether the former president is immune from criminal prosecution for conduct that occurred during his tenure in office. In this episode, Professor John Yoo of Berkeley Law School and Smita Ghosh of the Constitutional Accountability Center join Jeffrey Rosen to preview the arguments in the case, review the founders’ views on executive immunity, and discuss how the Court might decide this crucial case.
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Today’s episode was produced by Lana Ulrich, Samson Mostashari, and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Samson Mostashari, Cooper Smith, and Yara Daraiseh.
Participants
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His tenth book, Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2020.
Smita Ghosh is an appellate counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center. She previously served as a Research Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center and a Supreme Court Fellow at the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Smita joined in writing CAC’s brief filed on behalf of constitutional law scholars in support of the respondent, the United States.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also a professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources:
- Trump v. United States (oral argument via C-SPAN; transcript)
- Constitutional Accountability Center, Smita Ghosh, et al, Brief of Scholars of Constitutional Law in Support of Respondents, Trump v. United States
- Smita Ghosh, “The Founding Fathers Didn’t Think Trump Should Get Immunity Either,” Newsweek, Feb 8, 2024
- John Yoo, “The Trump Immunity Case is Weak—But He Doesn’t Need it to Prevail,” Newsweek, Mar 6, 2024
- Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982)
- Blassingame v. Trump (D.C. Cir. 2023)
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