Executive privilege is the right of the president of the United States and other members of the executive branch to maintain confidential communications under certain circumstances within the executive branch and to resist some subpoenas and other oversight by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of particular information or personnel relating to those confidential communications. The right comes into effect when revealing the information would impair governmental functions. Neither executive privilege nor the oversight power of Congress is explicitly mentioned in the United States Constitution. However, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that executive privilege and congressional oversight each are a consequence of the doctrine of the separation of powers, derived from the supremacy of each branch in its area of constitutional activity.
Valerie Elise Plame is an American writer, spy, novelist, and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. As the subject of the 2003 Plame affair, also known as the CIA leak scandal, Plame's identity as a CIA officer was leaked to and subsequently published by Robert Novak of The Washington Post. She described this period and the media firestorm that ensued as "mortifying, and I think I was in shock for a couple years".
Contempt of Congress is the misdemeanor act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically, the bribery of a U.S. senator or U.S. representative was considered contempt of Congress. In modern times, contempt of Congress has generally applied to the refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by a congressional committee or subcommittee—usually seeking to compel either testimony or the production of requested documents.
Fred Fisher Fielding is an American lawyer. He held the office of White House Counsel for US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush in addition to serving as an associate and deputy White House counsel for Richard Nixon under John Dean. Fielding was also counsel to the first presidential transition of Donald Trump and a member of the 9/11 Commission. An alumnus of Gettysburg College, he is the namesake of that school's Fielding Center for Presidential Leadership Study.
Robert Jones Portman is an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Ohio from 2011 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Portman was the 35th director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from 2006 to 2007, the 14th United States trade representative from 2005 to 2006, and a U.S. representative from 1993 to 2005, representing Ohio's 2nd district.
The 97th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C., from January 3, 1981, to January 3, 1983, during the final weeks of Jimmy Carter's presidency and the first two years of Ronald Reagan's presidency. The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the 1970 United States census.
John Choon Yoo is a South Korean-born American legal scholar and former government official who serves as the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Yoo became known for his legal opinions concerning executive power, warrantless wiretapping, and the Geneva Conventions while serving in the George W. Bush administration, during which he was the author of the controversial "Torture Memos" in the War on Terror.
John Michael Luttig is an American lawyer and jurist who served as a U.S. circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006. Luttig resigned his judgeship in 2006 to become the general counsel of Boeing, a position he held until 2019.
Leonard Anthony Leo is an American lawyer and conservative legal activist. He was the longtime vice president of the Federalist Society and is currently, along with Steven Calabresi, the co-chairman of the organization's board of directors.
Patrick F. Philbin is an American lawyer who served as Deputy Counsel to the President and Deputy Assistant to the President in the Office of White House Counsel in the Donald J. Trump administration. He previously served in the Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration.
Virginia "Ginni" Thomas is an American lawyer and conservative activist. In 1987, she married Clarence Thomas, who became an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1991. Her conservative commentary and activism have made her a controversial figure, especially because spouses of Supreme Court justices typically avoid engaging in political activity.
John Charles Eastman is an American lawyer and academic. Due to his efforts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, attempting to keep then-president Donald Trump in office and obstruct the certification of Joe Biden's victory, he has been criminally indicted, ordered inactive by the State Bar of California, and recommended for disbarment. Eastman has lost eligibility to practice law in California state courts, pending his appeal of the state bar judge's ruling that recommended him for disbarment. Eastman is also named as a co-conspirator in the federal indictment brought against Trump over his attempts to subvert the 2020 election results and prevent the certification of Biden's election.
Clarence Thomas is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1991. After Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the Supreme Court and has been its longest-serving member since Anthony Kennedy's retirement in 2018. Since Stephen Breyer's retirement in 2022, he is also the Court's oldest member.
Susan Lynn Brooks is an American prosecutor and politician. She is a Republican and the former U.S. Representative for Indiana's 5th congressional district. She was elected in 2012. The district includes the northern fifth of Indianapolis, as well as many of the city's affluent northern and eastern suburbs. Brooks served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana from 2001 to 2007.
The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States marked the commencement of Trump's first term as president and Mike Pence's only term as vice president. An estimated 300,000 to 600,000 people attended the public ceremony held on Friday, January 20, 2017, at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The event was the 58th presidential inauguration. Held in Washington, D.C., from January 17 to 21, 2017, inaugural events included concerts, the swearing-in ceremony, a congressional luncheon, parade, inaugural balls, and the interfaith inaugural prayer service. The inauguration was protested worldwide.
Donald Trump assumed office as president of the United States on January 20, 2017, and his first term ended on January 20, 2021. The president has the authority to nominate members of his Cabinet to the United States Senate for confirmation under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.
Rachel Lee Brand is an American lawyer, academic, and former government official. She served as the United States Associate Attorney General from May 22, 2017, until February 20, 2018, when she resigned to take a job as head of global corporate governance at Walmart. Brand was the first woman to serve as Associate Attorney General. She also served as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy in the George W. Bush administration and was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Prior to becoming Associate Attorney General, Brand was an associate professor at Antonin Scalia Law School.
The United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol was a select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives established to investigate the U.S. Capitol attack.
The Eastman memos, also known as the "coup memo", are documents by John Eastman, an American law professor retained by then-President Donald Trump, advancing the fringe legal theory that a U.S. Vice President has unilateral authority to reject certified state electors. This would have the effect of nullifying an election in order to produce an outcome personally desired by the Vice President, such as a result in the Vice President's own party's favor, including retaining himself as Vice President, or if the Vice President is himself the presidential candidate, then to unilaterally make himself president.
The Trump fake electors plot was a scheme to submit fraudulent certificates of ascertainment to falsely claim U.S. president Donald Trump had won the electoral college vote in certain states, following Trump's loss in the 2020 United States presidential election. After the results of the 2020 election determined Trump had lost, the scheme was devised by him, his associates, and Republican Party officials in seven states, and it formed a significant part of attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election made by Trump and his associates. The intent of the scheme was to pass the fraudulent certificates to then-vice president Mike Pence in the hope he would count them, rather than the authentic certificates, and thus overturn Joe Biden's victory. This scheme was defended by a fringe legal theory developed by Trump attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman, detailed in the Eastman memos, which claimed a vice president has the constitutional discretion to swap official electors with an alternate slate during the certification process, thus changing the outcome of the electoral college vote and the overall winner of the presidential race. The scheme came to be known as the Pence Card. By June 2024, dozens of Republican state officials and Trump associates had been indicted in four states for their alleged involvement. The federal Smith special counsel investigation is investigating Trump's role in the events. According to testimony Trump was aware of the fake electors scheme, and knew that Eastman's plan for Pence to obstruct the certification of electoral votes was a violation of the Electoral Count Act.
