Unmaking the Presidency

October 28, 2019
Hennessey and Wittes (The Future of Violence), editors of national security website Lawfare, deliver a penetrating partisan analysis of President Trump’s first term in office. Part catalogue of current events, part historical study, the book draws unflattering comparisons between Trump and former presidents, including George Washington, whose statement condemning the razing of a Cherokee town by Georgia settlers in 1792 is set alongside Trump’s comment there were “very fine people—on both sides” of a 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., where a white supremacist killed a counterprotester. Hennessey and Wittes illuminate how the constitutional system of checks and balances has stymied Trump’s “processless brand of decision-making,” noting that his first two executive orders restricting travel to the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries were struck down by federal courts, and recounting instances in which officials in the State and Justice departments contradicted presidential statements. The book’s wealth of factoids (“President Grover Cleveland answered the White House telephone each time it rang”) and keen insights into Trump’s character (“a man who wore his propensity to abuse power on his sleeve”) provide much food for thought. Liberals and independent-minded readers of presidential histories will savor this thorough, lucidly written account.

November 1, 2019

Hennessey (executive editor, Lawfare Blog, lawfareblog.com) and Wittes (editor in chief, Lawfare Blog; The Future of Violence) assess the Trump presidency as it compares with previous administrations and relates to the writings of founding fathers, such as Alexander Hamilton. Their narrative reveals that although many of Trump's actions are unethical and flaunt well-established norms and precedents, they are not unconstitutional. According to the authors, Trump has created an "expressive presidency," in which his personality cannot be separated from his policies. Endless Twitter assaults circumvent his own executive branch to appeal directly to his base, and no staff members are safe from his uneven temperament, as demonstrated by the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director James Comey. The authors highlight the investigation of the president's use of pardons and security clearances, lesser but monarchical-like powers, that cannot be contested. VERDICT This book was completed before the impeachment probe in October 2019 so parts feel outdated. However, serious political readers and presidential studies scholars will derive much from this cogent appraisal.--Karl Helicher, formerly with Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2019
Two Lawfare editors and senior fellows at the Brookings Institution trace the crumbling integrity of the U.S. presidency. As former National Security Agency attorney Hennessey and Wittes (Notes on the Mueller Report: A Reading Diary, 2019, etc.) show, early on in Donald Trump's presidency, the initial hopes that the office would tame his baser instincts quickly evaporated. The authors quote legal scholar Jack Goldsmith's assessment of the man: "so ill-informed...so openly mendacious, so self-destructive, so brazen in his abusive attacks." From the beginning, Trump proposed making the office a vehicle for his own self-expression, sublimating proper management functions, good faith execution of law, ethical conduct, truthfulness, and service. The authors effectively tap a wealth of material, including administration leaks, comments from ex-staffers, and Trump's own words. They argue convincingly that Trump's fracturing of the executive branch necessitates control mechanisms that continue to erode. Trump's mendacity is a key feature of his incompetence, and the culture of lying that he has fostered has produced more leaks than usual. In the past, leaks have often served to bolster government credibility by reducing the incidence of lying; now, however, they lead to more lies and extensive coverups. As staff and Cabinet members quit or are fired, the control mechanisms have all but disappeared. If the presidency is beginning to look like an autocracy, it is because Trump has assumed the power to protect the guilty while cultivating impunity for and from friends. As the authors consistently demonstrate, his view of justice is to reward friends and punish enemies. Though the authors acknowledge that tensions in Korea have lessened and the current economic and trade policy hasn't led to economic ruin (yet), their opinion of the president is clear. "If a first step is rejecting and repudiating Trump himself and facilitating his actual exit from office," they write, "the second key step is fortifying the presidency's institutional protections using well-designed laws." An incisive, frightening picture of a toxic environment in which "the presidency...needs a champion."

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