Investigating American Presidents

Exploring the roots of the presidency and presidential power as outlined in the Constitution; the advantages and disadvantages a president has during an investigation; why presidential investigations are essential knowledge for any American citizen.

Presidential crises and abuses of power; early executive scandals and their significant long-term effects; how people are still dealing with the fallout of famous investigations; the controversies of Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding.

Legislative and judicial oversight of the presidency as a permanent part of the American government; limiting and restraining the possibility of executive abuse; how a system of checks and balances came to exist; the case of Marbury v. Madison.

The Watergate burglars and how the consequences of their arrest brought down President Richard Nixon; two important Supreme Court cases that shaped a president's power to dismiss personnel; the Independent Counsel Act.

Why Congress and the public were convinced that an independent investigator was essential; the swing from the Nixon era to the independent counsel of the Reagan and Clinton eras; the special counsel investigating Russian election hacking.

Convincing evidence of a president's criminality and its effect on the country's management; the legality of indicting a sitting president; pondering questions about whether a president is in a class of their own when it comes to indictments.

Testimonial privileges as either barriers to the truth or limitations on the disclosure of sensitive information; examining the Whitewater and Clinton-Lewinsky scandals; exploring attorney-client privilege and executive privilege.

The confrontation between a president and a president's investigators; the court of public opinion; the storyline and its effect on how an investigation will be seen by future historians; examining four tactics used by President Bill Clinton.

The use of presidential pardons; two types of pardons in American history are the justice and mercy pardon and the peacefulness pardon; questions about the presidential pardon power; whether American presidents can pardon co-conspirators for crimes.

Presidential lies can undermine one's belief in the fairness of their system of government; how the president is not special when it comes to certain matters of law and evidence; lying under oath and grand jury subpoenas; key caveats to this view.

Even if formally cleared of wrongdoing, a president or a presidential aide may live with the stigma of investigation forever; many investigations typically happen behind closed doors; how the rules are different for presidents and their senior staff.

A study of impeachment in presidential investigations; why an impeachment is inevitably a political event; why, when a presidency is on the line, public opinion is at least as powerful a determinant of the outcome as the laws that are on the books.