Serviceable Instruments of His Authority” the Office of Legal Counsel, Donald Trump, and the Expansion of Executive Power
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6090540 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Celia Parry (0009-0005-3782-5406, Politics Department Pomona College Claremont California USA), Amanda Hollis‐brusky (Politics Department Pomona College Claremont California USA), Sean M Diament (0000-0002-1488-7322, Pomona College), Sean Diament (Politics Department Pomona College Claremont California USA) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication date | 2025-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Law & Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0265-8240 • E-ISSN: 1467-9930 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/lapo.70003 |
| OpenAlex | W4411664490 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 27 |
The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), a tiny office in the United States Department of Justice, was designed to hold the executive branch to the law. But in practice, the office has often played a role in the expansion of presidential power. We analyze the publicly available OLC opinions from Trump's first term to understand whether, to what extent, and how lawyers in OLC provided legal scaffolding for President Trump's expansion of presidential power. We find that the OLC under the first Trump administration did expand power, but it did so in a manner largely consistent with previous administrations. The Trump OLC reinforced previous extensions of presidential power more frequently than it introduced novel extensions of power, citing OLC precedent from both Republican and Democratic administrations. We also note the prevalence in these opinions of language associated with the Unitary Executive Theory, a constitutional theory once considered radical that has been adopted by the conservative legal movement. Thus, even though the Trump OLC was functionally similar to previous administrations in advancing presidential prerogatives through its opinions, how it justified these reinforcements and extensions of power is functionally different from Democratic administrations—and, as some have argued, more dangerous
Executive power · Physics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Law · Legal and Constitutional Studies · Legal Systems and Judicial Processes
By Executive Order
Power without Persuasion
The Unitary Executive
Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents
Transformative Bureaucracy
The presidency and the political system
Presidents and the Political Economy
The Law
The White House Counsel's Office
The Administrative Presidency and Bureaucratic Control
The strongman presidency and the two logics of presidential power
Serving the Law or Playing Politics? The Strategic Use of U.S. Attorney Appointments
Executive politics in an era of democratic crisis
Donald Trump and the Norms of the Presidency
The Law
Ideas with Consequences
The Unitary Executive Theory
Presidents Above Party
Presidential Unilateral Power
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |