The Implications of Trump v. United States for the Exercise of Foreign Affairs and War Powers
The unique format of this Festschrift has afforded us the opportunity to consider the possible impact and consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent presidential immunity decision in Trump v. United States upon the exercise of the President’s powers in the particular areas of diplomacy and war. In the view of some observers, the decision represents a striking (and unprecedented) extension of presidential immunity and, perhaps more consequentially, poses a serious constraint on the ability of the judiciary to constrain future presidential abuses of power in the field of foreign relations. For that reason, it is worth careful analysis and interpretation. The issues it raises are among the subjects of the seminar that we teach together at Georgetown Law, aptly titled “Constitutional Aspects of Foreign Affairs.”