Advisory Opinions - Origins: From Kings to Executives

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

David French is off doing David French things, so Sarah Isgur takes over the podcast and invites Judge Charles Eskridge of the Southern District of Texas and Judge Brantley Starr of the Northern District of Texas to discuss all things Texas—and the powers of the executive branch. The Agenda: —What’s exciting about Locke? —Here comes the Old Whig —King of England vs. the American president —Appeal to heaven —Second terms are bad news —The shallow state —Departmentalism and lawsuits Show Notes: —Origins Pt. 2 —Origins Pt. 4 —Origins Pt. 7 —Massachusetts Constitution —Previous AO episode with Judges Eskridge and Starr Advisory Opinions is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings, click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to TD Direct Investing. Ready? I was born ready. Welcome to Advisory Opinions. I'm Sarah Isger. David French is off doing whatever it is that

a David French does. But we have an incredible episode today because, as promised, we are revisiting the origins of the Constitution class where we look at some of the primary documents around the time of the adoption and ratification of the Constitution and talk about what the heck anyone thought it meant back then. So we said we were going to do treason next time. We decided we're doing treason next time because we need to do executive power this time. So we are doing origins on executive power with Judge Charles Eskridge of the Southern District of Texas and Judge Brantley Starr of the Northern District of Texas. And if you want to hear more about the class or of course just listen to our last episode,

which was on the origin of the Bill of Rights and individual rights, you can check out the Christmas episode. I believe it actually came out on Christmas Eve. It was called Origins of the Federal Constitution, because this time, class is happening and we are jumping right in Judge Eskridge. We're sort of doing this out of order. I mean, we did the Bill of Rights last time. We're doing executive power this time. Why? Well, why is, I think, was your idea, because there's been a lot of things going on in the past month that touches on the issues of executive power, obviously Article 2 and the beginning of a new presidential administration. I wish that David could be on so that you and he could take over the back and forth on modern commentary on what's been going on as opposed to the two judges that are with you on

this who are gonna stay probably more historical on the topic. But it has been an interesting... I'm teaching right now the class at the University of Texas, and it has been very interesting rereading these documents again where we are in the class vis-a-vis with so much of what has been happening over the past 30 days and then the past really 60 and 90 days With with the transition and all the issues that have come up and judge star Do you want to walk us through what we're not going to talk about today in terms of executive power? Because article 2 is pretty voluminous. And so y'all have already moved things out of the category

Sorry judge, Asgridge. I was just going to say, Judge Starr, why don't you, so this would be normally class four. Brantley, why don't you cover, why don't you just sort of set up what we would have covered in the first three parts, you know, so that the listeners are kind of caught up with our class, just big picture. Sure. Well, part of the class focuses on not just the structure and the articles that we have and going article by article.

It would be a very short class if we did that. And this class segment is really one of 14 parts. So we start off with some of the antecedent frameworks that the founders were looking at. They weren't coming up with a constitution in a vacuum, as Sarah said last time. It didn't just come forth from the foam. And so they were looking at writers like Locke and Montesquieu and Locke was talking about the importance

of separating the powers. Montesquieu was given the idea that a republic can only control a small territory, but a Confederated Republic, a republic on top of other smaller republics might control a larger one. So we're studying a lot of these background readings and principles that the founders are reading. And then if you remember, there's a story from Jefferson as he was ambassador to France before the Constitutional

Convention was happening. He sent a trunk full of maybe 200 books to his friend James Madison on why democracies don't work. And so they needed to make sure there was a republic that did work. So we study a lot of those background lead-up principles and what makes our union function, right? The union is Alexander, sorry, not Alexander Hamilton, but Abraham Lincoln acknowledged, dated back to at least 1774. And so what makes our nation a union of states? What makes it perpetual?

And so those are the background principles we lead up to first, and we cover Congress in Article 1 in the week before this one on the executive branch in Article 2. And so then, Sarah, with this class, what we're not covering, this is actually sort of a good big picture for the rest of the class, the legislative overlap that the president has with Congress in terms of the presentment clause and the veto power, his obligations to give a state of the union and convene and adjourn Congress, that's been covered with Article 1 legislative power. There's a class, a couple after this, Class 6 is on war and insurrection and invasion powers, and that's where commander-in-chief provisions are covered. There's then a class that's specifically

on elections and electoral rights, and so presidential election clauses are there. We will cover some of the appointment and removal clause today, but with respect to how that implicates appointment of judges, that is left to a class on Article 3 in the judicial power. And then while we are going to look at the take care clause, specific duties about law enforcement in the criminal context, and then issues of reprieves and pardons is left to a class that really just gathers definition and the prosecution of crimes and also punishment. So the Eighth Amendment is gathered in there. But some of that, you know, here we're starting with, you know, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 1, which says there's executive power, and

it's going to be in the president. And Judge Starr, I think you're going to take that up. Okay. So that is the very first sentence of article two. The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America. I'm told by some of my colleagues that my reading of that sentence is missing some key concepts and that the fuller sentence would say it's vested in the president and such other independent agencies as Congress may from time to time create. But I'm from Texas, perhaps I don't have a full and complete copy of Article 2. What is interesting is another thing that is not actually in this sentence. It doesn't

say that the executive powers herein granted are vested in the president. That is the structure that we had for Congress's vesting clause. So that Article I clause said the powers herein granted, which we know are Article I, Section 8 powers, right? Regulation of commerce among the states and foreign countries and coastal roads, things of that nature. So Congress has limited enumerated powers

and those limited powers are vested in Congress. But here it's saying the executive power shall be granted to the president. So that makes us wonder what is the executive power? What was this historical notion that they were talking about? And John Locke explains it to us. So in a second treatise, Locke has already told us that we were born into a state of nature, we had these sort of sovereign rights, but it wasn't all peachy. We had the right to property, but then someone else had their rights to come in and try to

take our property by force. And then we would go get it back. And we would go too far in getting it back. And so we would have Hatfields and McCoys enter a civil society where people are giving up some of their rights for mutual protection. And Locke earlier in the second treatise talks about the reason why you would separate out the powers so you don't have tyranny from one person wielding the power to write laws and to enforce them and to judge them.

But then this part of Locke's second treatise, he's zooming in on the executive branch and he finds that there are really two powers that any executive is wielding. The first is probably the power we would all first think of, which is the power to enforce the laws that are written by some other branch. Parliament would be who Locke was talking about. We're talking about Congress. And he says, obviously, those laws usually are focused on the domestic nature of the nation. But there is an entire other bucket of power that the executive has, which he calls federative. And that is relating to foreign countries. He's got a really interesting notion of

federative powers. And Madison will read later on goes after him and says he's a little bit drunk on the monarchy, that, you know, perhaps he was willing to criticize the monarchy more than other writers of his time, but he still was sort of infused with this notion of power in that branch. And so when you look at some of his comments in this discussion of Federative powers, he's believing that the federative powers are inherent, and that in emergencies, you can even have an executive power regulating domestic affairs that goes against positive law. And this is fascinating. I think we think of inherent powers regarding foreign affairs,

because if someone attacks you, you almost have this inherent duty as an executive to fight back as parents' patriarch, sort of protector of the people. But what about when it comes to domestic laws? Locke also has this fuzzy inherent notion that if there's an emergency, their duty to protect the people might compel them to override positive laws from parliament for him or Congress for us. So question for either of you, what do you think about this notion of law? I mean obviously we have to have some inherent foreign powers in an executive branch because you don't

know what other countries will do to you. But do you have these inherent powers in an emergency to suspend laws that Parliament or Congress passed? Are you comfortable with that? Do you have concerns with that? I have concerns. Oh, you're an American, Sarah. Yes, you have concerns. Yeah, because I mean, like, look, we're seeing this even in the modern era

where Congress has given the president some powers when he declares an emergency, and not surprising, more and more things become emergencies. And even my own experience at the Department of Justice, you know, we sort of have the regular order of business and how norms work to do things. And I'm sure a bunch of people have experienced this in non-government places too. When you're the one in the chair, the thing can seem so unusual

that you need to change the way we regularly do things, because no one's had to face this before. And it's actually one of the things I have most taken with me, aside from literally my Man of All Seasons copy signed by Rod Rosenstein, is his insistence that in fact, the more unusual something looks, the more of an emergency it seems, the more you rely on those norms and order of doing things. Not that you say, well, we get to make up our own way to do stuff because this seems really scary right now. I understand the knee-jerk reason to say, well, yeah, but

if it's an emergency, emergency, like, that's why we have a president. But that's just not how reality works. Let me jump in on, so looking at this extract from Locke, and particularly at sections 158 through 160. And just to note, listeners, all of this is in, we've uploaded this PDF to the show notes. So when you're referring to page numbers, you can also refer to the way that you guys have numbered them so listeners can follow along. Okay.

So that's page 221. He leads in with, in Latin, Salus populi Suprema Lex, which I had to look up the first time I came across it. That is a quote from Cicero, and it means, let the good of the people be the supreme law. That is also apparently the Missouri state motto, just so we all get current on that. But let the good of the people be the supreme law. And he goes from there to this notion in executive power of prerogative, what that mean prerogative meant when it was vested in the king. And he goes through that an idea that not everything can be controlled by the

legislative. And so the executive has to have discretion to act until the legislature can address an issue. And with that, he's formulating a view that prerogative is supposed to be the ability to work for the common good, but not work against the common good. But I always pose the question to the class, how far can you read that as a power under our constitution? How far does prerogative alone go? And we'll be talking about that some as we go forward, especially like with the take-care clause on what's been defined, how clearly it's been defined, what type of discretion continues to remain, you know, within the hands of the

president. But Sarah or Brantley, did either of you have a reaction to that when you read it? Sarah Bruckner So I will admit that reading Locke was, in some ways, the most boring part of the reading for me until I got to an old wig once again, right? So this happened in our last discussion as well, where an old wig is just coming in hot with really thought provoking stuff that makes Locke more interesting in hindsight. Because I don't know, the way Locke writes is sort of like, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, whatever, maybe yes, maybe no. But can I read the old wig part that really got my blood pumping here and made me more excited about Locke?

So basically, he says, this form of government with this incredibly strong executive, like one that Locke has described, is incredibly dangerous and kingly. But unlike a king, it's not hereditary. So he says, much as I abhor kingly government, yet I venture to pronounce where kings are admitted to rule, they should most certainly be vested with hereditary power. The election of a king, whether it be in America or Poland, will be a scene of horror and confusion.

And I am perfectly serious when I declare that, as a friend to my country, I shall despair of any happiness in the United States until his office is either reduced to a lower pitch of power or made perpetual and hereditary and in this moment where I am complaining about the enormous power that we have evolved into the executive branch I have been marinating nonstop in the idea of like, would I rather it be for life? Hereditary, you're not going to convince me.

I can't get there. I don't think on hereditary, but I'm happy to have the discussion. I see some points to it. So it made me want to rethink Locke entirely because we come to all of these discussions with this assumption of self-government and elected persons.

And I guess Old Whig made me really think about it. If you're gonna have all of this power in a president and they're gonna be obsessed with reelection and popularity and majority support, is that not the best, like the right way in some moral sense, is it the best way? As in maybe it's not perfect, but are the alternatives worse?

And the old wig is like, he's swinging the pendulum all the way over. He's like, if you're gonna have this much power in someone, it might as well be hereditary. And you do here, I mean, look, hereditary, you're gonna have some genetic misses. That's just how life's going to work. But you do sort of raise people up with this sense of duty to their people that they don't

get to live their own lives. They live a life for their country, you know, and we train them to do that. It's kind of creepy and weird. But there's something to be said for that. Okay, then the other option though is life tenure like a judge. And the amount of independence that we so cherish in our judiciary, we didn't really consider for our executive, but a lot of the same interests that adhere to the judiciary might also adhere to the executive.

So I don't know, Old Whig really making me reconsider my just assumptions that I bring to the conversation. Well, and Sarah, what I like about Old Whigg is he makes two very thought-provoking points. He makes them in the same breath. And it took me a while, but I had to separate them out. His first point was that we have given the same level of power to our president in America as the King of England has. And then he says, so if we've done that, we may as well make it hereditary, but I want to pause and just say, have we given the same level of power?

Oldwig's point is, if you actually parse out the powers granted in Article II, you have every power that the King of England has except one, and that is the power to make nobles that the King of England has and the American president does not. But then he says, functionally, the American president will make all great men. And so functionally, we have the same has and the American president does not. But then he says, functionally, the American president will make all great men.

And so functionally, we have the same power in the American president. I'm not sure that the president makes all great people in America, but the president certainly makes great people in America, just not all of them. But it does make me think, I have a hard time thinking of powers that the King of England possesses that the American president doesn't. And over the course of the last couple of hundred years, you could make the argument that Old Whig was underselling American presidential power. Right? Now we sort of think of the King of England as a figurehead, a puppet, no real powers. And I don't know that anyone

would call our current president a puppet. Right? So we certainly have energy in the executive, as Alexander Hamilton will tell us here in a little bit. But it is an interesting first point that he makes on the president and America has the same functional powers. I think the problem is his solution. And the solution was, speaking to a group of people who had risked their lives to fight off a hereditary executive that we should now welcome one. Right? And so in Hamilton's next Federalist paper, which we won't go into in depth, he makes

quick work of that. But it does make you wonder, should we have a live tenured executive? At one point, the founders were throwing around the phrase chief magistrate instead of president. And sort of that notion connotes almost a purely ministerial view of what the president is doing. Certainly not a Lockean view of these inherent foreign powers and maybe emergency powers to disregard domestic laws. But it's certainly an interesting concept that he makes.

It's just the problematic alternative he's pitching to a group of people who risk their lives to throw off a predatory monarchy. Charles? Charles Dixon One, before we move off of John Locke onto what we would call in our class the more current documents, which would just get us into the 1700s. John Locke, just so your listeners are aware, the Second Treatise is from 1689. It is a theoretical work. It's a philosophical work. And it's coming at the time, it's the same year that the English

Bill of Rights came into being. And it follows their experience through a couple of bad monarchies, but also an interim with Cromwell. So he's talking theoretically and trying to map out room with Cromwell. So he's talking theoretically and trying to map out a view of what the best government is. One reason why an old Whig and Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, that their writings resonate so much is their writing then to persuade. They are writing dynamically because they have an interest on the table that they are trying to convince at the time. And so they really just do present their arguments in a more interesting and current way. But to make the point that clearly John Locke is on the mind of the framers at the time, and I'll connect this to the Declaration of Independence, the very last section on this, he said, so there's prerogative,

it could be abused, and what can you do about it if he who has prerogative is not doing it for the common good? And he says, the old question will be asked in this matter of prerogative, but who shall be judged when this power is made a right use of or a wrong use of. He goes through that it can't be the legislative power. For some reason, he does not draw in the legislative power in this passage, although he addresses it elsewhere. He then says that people have no other remedy in this as in all other cases where they have no judge on earth, but to appeal to heaven. And that is a flag from the American Revolution. It's

a flag that came into some controversy recently for its use. But the appeal to heaven is something that the revolutionaries brought to bear. And then when you look at Jefferson's writing of the Declaration of Independence, how do we conclude it? How are we going to conclude this document that we're writing? And it says, we therefore, the representatives of the United States, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, we do declare ourselves free in the independent states,

et cetera. But it's little things like that. It would be nice if the Declaration of Independence had footnotes citing where all of the different provisions come from. But, you know, as you go through some of these documents, you do start to make connections that if these ideas and concepts were clearly on their mind in terms of what they were drafting and how they were supporting their cause. I actually did not know that the controversial Appeal to Heaven flag that was flown at Justice Alito's summer home and at San Francisco City Hall until about the same time, actually.

Did either of them know it was from John Locke? I don't know. I don't know. But it's an amazing, it's, it is a beautiful flag and it's, it really is. I mean, that was a revolutionary war flag that was used in some circumstances. And it's amazing that in 1774 or whenever it is that it came into use, it's basically saying, hey, King, please go back and read John Locke because you're not doing this right. That's literally what the flag

is symbolizing. How is an American company helping to end smoking? PMI-US is on a mission, a mission to improve public health by developing science-backed, innovative, smoke-free products. The goal? Empower the 45 million nicotine users in the United States, 30 million who still smoke, to make the switch to better alternatives. For Philip Morris International and its U.S. affiliates, a smoke-free future is now.

Learn more at PMI.com slash U.S. And we'll take a quick break to hear from our sponsor today, Aura. I'm sure you've got someone in your life who takes way too many photos, who's got like a thousand photos, 20,000 photos on their phone, and they're just sitting there on their phone. So why not give them a unique and stylish digital picture frame from Aura Frames? It was the number one digital picture frame by Wirecutter and for good reason.

It's so easy to set up and they have different frame options. I will tell you, I didn't know I was going to record this advertisement today and I was touting my Aura frame last night getting compliments on it from guests staying in our house. It's easy. We have the picture switch out just once a day. You can do it like every few seconds if you want, but I really like that we have a picture of the day. My son runs downstairs in the morning to check out which picture that's almost always of him or his brother is the picture of the day. Yesterday's picture was of him in a very like scary kind of

Halloween mask. Maybe that wasn't the best picture to have up in our kitchen for 24 hours, but nevertheless it provided conversation and joy for the whole family. The best part is that it comes with unlimited storage. All you need is the free Aura app and a Wi-Fi connection, and you can upload as many photos and videos as you want year round. Right now, you can save on the perfect gift that keeps on giving by visiting AuraFrames.com. For a limited time, listeners can get $20 off their best-selling Carver Mat Frame with

code ADVISORY. That's A-U-R-A-FRAMES.COM promo code ADVISORY. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Judge Starr, to get back to our old wig conversation and the differences in power between King George and our current president, I guess there's a vibes problem, right? There's a vibes difference, which Old Wyk couldn't possibly know

because he's not gonna know what the vibes will end up being. The vibes to me of King George are that he sort of leads things and Congress follows, or sorry, Parliament follows, and that at least for a long time in our system, Congress led, or at least there was some par, right, on some things the president might lead,

on some things Congress might lead. But what's sort of interesting now in the past 20 years, it's really hard to distinguish. Like, what is the difference between King George and the current presidency for the last 20 years? It is presidentially led. So then, can I ask the question of both of you? The benefits of an independent judiciary, we sing to the heavens all the time. Why have we never considered an independent, by which I mean life tenure removable by impeachment for the presidency. Well, I will say that, and we'll touch on this in just a moment, Joseph's story brought up something

that our materials didn't cover earlier, and that's the states in the convention in Philadelphia initially settled on a seven-year term. One of the things we'll cover later on in this session is that duration was a key ingredient to an energetic executive in Hamilton's view. And if you had too short a duration, then your president couldn't accomplish anything. So think of it now, think of a seven year term for the executive and what all the executive could do in seven, four is almost hamstringing compared to seven. I don't know. I agree, but this was justice, now justice, Kavanaugh, but then Judge Kavanaugh's point where he said, as someone who has done this, the worst thing that we do is have our presidents run

for reelection. Second terms are a disaster. We should have a single six-year term where you don't run for reelection. And that's interesting to me. But then I was rereading my grandfather's son by Justice Thomas where he talks about running the EEOC for the full eight years of the Reagan administration through the first year or so of the Bush administration And the changes he's able to make because he's not running for re-election

If you had had four EEOC chairman during that time None of the stuff he's talking about would have been able to get done because there's a ramp up time, there's a lame duck time. You have to have a substantial period of time to get anything done and the larger the bureaucracy grows, the longer that period of time probably needs to be. So if it takes eight years at EEOC in the 80s. How much longer would it take now for a president to actually be able to affect real change in a ship of state? Your point is very interesting, and it presupposes the idea of there being a lame duck term of office.

And that is so now because of the 22nd Amendment. That was not so when the Constitution was written. And I mean, Sarah, you're jumping like literally to one of the very last documents that we had because of we would be looking at terms of office and what that meant vis-a-vis the 22nd Amendment. But with the 22nd Amendment, which, you know, put the term limits, you can only run and be elected twice, Hamilton in Federalist 72 himself wrote against that and said, the fact of having the lame duck tenure would be the problem because there's no motivation to good behavior, there's nothing that curbs self-interest,

and a turnover in terms of how long it could go on if the people are bought into what their executive is doing. You're losing, you know, that loss of experience and that stability. So, a lot of, I think, a lot of the... And I guess I would say on the other hand, if the term of office were perpetual or for life, I think that you would say on the other hand if the term of office what were perpetual or for life I think that you would have also the same loss of motivation towards good behavior And curb on self-interest because there's not you're not having to stand for reelection Where's your good behavior my good behavior is I look ever towards the Senate and what they might think of me in the future.

But there is that. No, I agree that, well, look, invite us back and we'll talk about Article 3 power at some point, and we would be delighted to. No, but there's a lot of concern about that, and especially what, well, Hamilton's Federalist Paper 76 gets brought in a lot, but James Wilson has a very long document on who it is that will be or ought to be judges and what that will naturally mean. And you can query whether, you know, we all live up to that of what's there, just in the same way that you can say as you read these documents about the executive power or who they think are going to be their legislators and things.

It's like, are we really getting what we expected at the outset? But there is a theme that runs through this, the virtue of those that will become president, that those who will be our elected officers and their attendance to the goodwill, to the good of the people. And beyond that, it is trust to not micromanage the system as it goes along, but the idea that there will be a frequent recurrence to elections and satisfy yourself with that. And that's very scary if you're on the other side and you feel like it's going off track. But as you go through a lot of these, it's Hamilton's argument. It's like executive power

has to be somewhere. It has to be robust. It has to be energetic. And that power gets to go be exercised and that is then constrained and checked or ratified in the next election. And there's that theme that runs through. So just so A.O. listeners don't think that I've been body snatched. No, I don't actually think we should. I mean, obviously not a hereditary president. Oh, my God. Absolutely not. Again, I just point to the genetics of the British monarchy, and I think that should answer itself. The lifetime appointment, obviously not, because what you could very well end up with is Congress,

who keeps getting reelected. If the people are upset with the president, don't approve of the president, they keep electing then people to thwart him in Congress. And you go through a 40 year period where Congress is just sitting there voting no on everything. And you end up with horrible stagnation, no energy or vigor in the presidency if he just thinks he's going to get checked on everything, but also is in life tenure from some past date. So like, yes, of course, you must elect the president. It must be at close enough intervals to allow for political accountability or else I don't think it works with the legislative branch. How can you execute

something if you're not also politically accountable, similar fashion to the legislative branch? But I'm not sure we got the balance right. And I don't know if it's the 22nd Amendment's fault or the four-year terms, again, actually needed sort of like the way that salaries grow with inflation or the House of Representatives should grow with population growth. I think perhaps the tenure in office needed to grow with the size of the bureaucracy because four years is too short. They're running for reelection the whole time and second terms have been this disaster, as then Judge Kavanaugh pointed out, now going

for 50 years, second terms have been where the bad news is. So, yeah, I just think like what I really liked about these readings was it made you kind of go back to first principles and actually walk through and say, okay, you're sitting in that room in Philadelphia. What should this actually look like? Would have to run through this, Sarah. I mean, as you phrase it, you and David phrase it frequently, the great Congress do your job. That's the thing. And when you also read these papers, there is a notable fear that perhaps too much power

is being given to the legislative branch. But that because the view is that there's gonna be an aggressive use of that legislative power. And you all have taken up recently on some episodes, is the president exercising too much power at the expense of Congress or vice versa. But it's in a somewhat, in some context, a vacuum of legislation not being aggressively pursued and setting the terms of what the laws that are then supposed to be that will be faithfully executed. Oh, and stories, commentaries that you have as document eight here, we also haven't talked about having more than one executive because that idea does not intrigue me,

actually. And you have Hamilton walking through the Roman history and it's like, yeah, that one feels pretty obvious if anyone's ever done a group project in junior high school. It's going to go off the rails one way or the other. It's only a question of which kind of problem you're going to have, tyranny of one member of the group or nobody does it. And neither of those seem like a good idea. But it's kind of amazing. They actually made themselves go through the process on all of these questions.

How many people? How long? Renewable terms. And I don't think it's obvious it came out the way that it came out, in the specifics at least. Though again, I'm pretty happy with the one person versus there was like, what about two? What about three? I think there was one for four also. Maybe, I don't know, like a council, basically. Woof.

Yeah. And there's no passing the buck because it's one, four years. Should it be four years? Should it be seven years of the election? But it's one person who has to take responsibility. Unless it's an independent agency, Judge Starr. Well, I would say, and you've already brought this up, right? Hamilton in Federalist 70 is explaining why we have to have a unitary executive. And this is the most cited Federalist paper that exists. And he says, I guess in his preface, he's talking about that there are critics who think that a vigorous executive is inconsistent with the genius of Republican government. He says not so, that energy is a leading character in the definition of good government when

it comes to energy in the executive. And he also makes the point that a feeble executive implies a feeble execution of government, which makes me wonder, can you have good government with a feeble executive implies a feeble execution of government, which makes me wonder, can you have good government with a feeble executive? Is that a possibility, good government with a feeble executive? The state of Texas has one, as you all know. The governor in the state of Texas is by far the weakest sort of statewide office holder in the state probably, and one of, if not the weakest governors in the country. And Texas is doing pretty freaking well, if you ask me, although I've recently seen encroachment

of beans into chili and I will not tolerate that. We draw a line there, Sarah. Some things show up. So yeah, so why isn't, I mean, this is when people talk about, for instance, the idea of how insane it would be to have no campaign contribution limits. And I'm like, Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, several states do this. And like, I don't I mean, you can say it's good or bad, but like, it's worked out kind of that it doesn't matter, if anything.

So a weak executive, you think like, that would be nuts. But in our little 50 laboratories of democracy, we've tried it. And it's actually one of our most economically productive states. And just flesh out what the Texas model looks like. In Texas, our governor appoints board members. So let's say we, we have a variety of agencies, I can't remember the count from when I was at the AG's office with Scott, but they're an untold number of state agencies. And on typical ones not created by the Constitution,

the government will pick who the board is, for example, the Department of Public Safety. And then those board members will pick who runs the agency, the executive director. So there's a diffusion of power there. It's not exactly like the council model that the founders were deliberating the pros and cons of, but it is a diffusion model in another way.

One other twist is that in Texas, our state agencies don't have implied substantive powers. They only have implied procedural powers. And so we would never carry the necessary and proper clause to expand their substantive powers. But Texas is currently functioning and it's functioning well and the views of a great many people. Okay, Paul. it's functioning well in the views of a great many people. Okay, Paul. Paul Hickman I would array this also in terms of the experience, the immediate prior experience from which the framers were drafting, and that's the Articles of Confederation, where there was, we were talking about, should it be two, could

it have been four? And the Articles of Confederation, it was zero. There was not an executive power at all. And they knew that that government proved to be ineffectual because there was no way to compel compliance with the laws that Congress was passing, nor was there a judiciary. There was no federal judiciary. But coming into the Constitution, Sarah, part of your concern, I think, is looking at it in terms of the size of the government now and what it means vis-a-vis the bureaucracy

and what the president can do with it. And I would say when you go back, this class that we're doing, we would be following legislative power with the limited and enumerated grants of power to the legislative branch. Clause is 1 through 17 of Article 1, Section 8, immediately prior to clause 18, which is the necessary and proper clause by which so many things expand. But they're looking at that as very narrow grants of power, specific powers to the federal government, you do need an executive, as Hamilton is arguing, that's going to enforce that. But I don't think that their view is... For like what Brantley is saying in Texas, Texas keeps control and power over all else that has not been granted to the federal government.

And so, it can make sense to diffuse that power among many different persons or bodies to oversee that. I think here they're looking at it as we're setting up what is intended to be a rather narrow federal government and having one executive to superintend those laws is a good thing. I at least think that that's the background of their thinking on it. Okay, I feel like even though y'all are the professors,

I'm in charge of the time. Talk about switching up the executive powers between too many different people. But we definitely need to go onto the cabinet and appointments and advisors. So, Irudel there with the North Carolina convention, he's going to go on to be a Supreme Court justice. That's all I know about him, literally. I'm like, I know that name. You're a Supreme Court justice in the future. Hi. And the provision at issue is Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1, about presidential advisors. It says that the president may require the opinion in writing of the principal officer

in each of the executive departments upon the subject relating to the duties of the respective offices. And we're also going to be looking with this at the appointment clause in terms of the officers with whom, well, of whom the president is going to appoint and with whom he's going to work. But it gets into this idea of, well, it's just advisors. It's not a required counsel. It's not something that is then seen as a delegated power to them. When you get into the appointment clause and we'll get to Hamilton and his Federalist paper on this, it's, again, this idea of leaving

it to one person to be the one that is the point of responsibility for all of these things. There cannot be buck passing. And so the notion of what the advisors and the officers are doing, particularly the advisors, is a much lesser thing than what was set up, for instance, in Great Britain. I mean, Judge Starr, these advisors and the concern about the advisors sure sound a lot like what concerns over independent agencies would look like, but it should be far less so over just a singular advisor who only can advise the executive and their concern about accountability for those folks. Boy, let me introduce you to the Securities

and Exchange Commission, Justice Iridel. That's right, CFPB, there's a host of them, right? And so the advisors is also an interesting point that Charles brings up comparing to the British experience because in Britain, they did have a process for removing their advisors for bad advice. In America, we still have impeachment and remember the House in the

last administration impeached DHS secretary, but there was no trial in the Senate. And the theory of that supposedly was that the president is not bound to follow the advice of any advisor, right? The advisors can't bind the president because it is a unitary executive, so no need to remove someone who gives bad advice. Let's look at... Let's jump over to document 29, Luther Martin, which is sort of the precursor to Hamilton's Federalist paper. Luther Martin and what he wrote, any Federalist who wrote something called genuine information, and we have extracts of this throughout the materials as it's pertinent. He's concerned that the power to nominate is in reality the power to appoint, which is then in reality, the power to influence and control. Hamilton pushes back on that somewhat pragmatically, at least in some respects, saying, well, it

has to start somewhere. You have to, you know, drive these people from somewhere and argues that it makes sense for that to be the executive. But, I mean, Sarah, I would ask, and we've been through right now, obviously, the appointment process at the beginning of a new administration. And Hamilton and Federalist 76 is talking about the president is on point for this, and he needs to be able to gather around him the persons that are going to effectuate his term of office for which the people voted him in. And so, I guess, your thoughts on the appointment process and whether it is... Well, we've seen how it's played out here.

You know, only, I mean, I think one nomination was withdrawn. The others appear to have gone through at this point. And so our new president does have the persons around him that he wishes and by which his administration is going to be judged three and a half years from now. But what are your reactions to pairing what you see here with modern times? So I have two maybe contradictory thoughts about this, but maybe not. As I wrote when I left the Trump administration, I thought it was a problem that so many of the people he had appointed were not fully on board with his agenda.

I called them the shallow state, the people who were telling him to his face, like, don't do this, and then convincing him not to do it. So they weren't ignoring orders or anything like that, but they also weren't putting the gas pedal down on the vision that Donald Trump had for America. And so what you had then was giving a referendum to the American people, something that I couldn't have foreseen in 2019, but that obviously was the case in 2024, of a referendum on his first term that wasn't totally his first term. So in that sense, I absolutely think presidents

should have enormous discretion over who they appoint for that very reason. It's part of political accountability that the president has a vision and that he can actually follow through on that vision by picking the people who he thinks can best bring it to fruition. So what is the role of the Senate in all of this? And here's where it's a little bit contradictory

because I am dying laughing at Hamilton's Federalist 76. I'll read one portion of it. Though it might therefore be allowable to suppose that the executive might occasionally influence some individuals in the Senate, yet the supposition that he could in general purchase the integrity of the whole body would be forced and improbable. Oh, Mr. Hamilton, I would like to introduce you to the United States Senate in 2025, which look, to say that he purchased the integrity

of the whole body, I guess it kind of depends on how you want to define some of those terms, but it is so much in the individual political interests of the senators from that party to fall behind the president in these appointments that the advice and consent process became unmeaningful, I would argue. Now, but again, maybe it should be not that meaningful because the president should have the people that he wants and the advice and consent process should be more meaningful when it comes to, for instance,

life appointments in the judiciary or something like that, which has been pointed out by many people as well. So I don't mean that the Senate has abrogated its duties. Maybe they are doing their duty, but what is the purpose of advice and consent if they all think their political futures are so tied up with the current president of their party? Is that a type of political accountability? It is, but it basically ends the purpose of advice and consent. No, Judge Starr? I think I can't take issue with anything that you've said, but there is, it's interesting

because Madison speaks frequently in his Federalist papers of faction and that faction will protect us all as a structure. But I think sometimes faction can accomplish exactly what you've said, Sarah, and that because you have political parties that are the same as the president, then there is enormous pressure to fall in line and to approve who the president wants.

So I think faction can cut both ways sometimes. All right. We've got three more sections to hit here. And I don't know that we're going to hit them all, but maybe we can do quick overviews of them. So next up was foreign affairs. I think Judge Starr, that was yours. You betcha. For foreign affairs, we are looking at primarily in this one, the proclamation of neutrality from George Washington. And the clause that issued in Article 2 is the Treaty Clause.

So the president negotiates the treaties and then the Senate confirms by two-thirds threshold of senators who were present. There were several federalist papers written on this that I won't really go into. I'll just note John Jay wrote one of the most thorough ones. And this was one of Jay's five Federalist papers. He got sick, had to bow out of the project with Hamilton and Madison, but he got well in time to be Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. So that's a good lesson for us all.

If you get sick- Wait, to be clear, he did not get sick. This is the thing that I am on a fight against. That sounds like he came down with the flu. No, he came down with a brick to the head. He was putting down a riot, the corpse riot. So just give John Jay his credit there. He didn't get sick.

He recovered. And ironically, when he was Chief Justice, he was dispatched by George Washington to negotiate the Jay Treaty, which will hit if we have time later on. So he was a man of many talents presiding as chief and negotiating treaty. So the Washington Proclamation had an interesting factual background. As was custom, England and France were at war at the time.

So the proclamation was in 1793. And the ambassador, the French ambassador in the US, was going around raising money from American citizens to go and hire privateers who would capture British vessels in US waters. So this made for a very interesting, complicated plot where the US couldn't stay totally silent on it. We had both sides of the cabinet battling over this. This was Hamilton cabinet battle number two.

And the Thomas Jefferson position was certainly siding with the French. He was French ambassador. He was a Francophile in many people's views. And so he was certainly advocating for an American alliance with the French. And then you had the Federalists and Hamilton on the other side, who were wanting to actually do more

than the proclamation of neutrality and to have Washington recognize that the proclamation of neutrality and to have Washington recognize that the treaty with France was broken. Because remember, after the French Revolution, then they had interesting thoughts like killing a bunch of clergy and declaring war on every monarchy they could find within Europe. And so they, the Federalists thought that was reason enough to break the treaty with France and fully ally with Great Britain. So the proclamation of neutrality was sort of the middle ground compromise that

Washington came up with. And he said that because America is currently friendly and impartial towards those belligerent powers of largely Great Britain and France, that it's the disposition of the US that they should not be involved in that war. And he's exhorting the citizens of the US to avoid all acts and proceedings that would aid one side or another. There was a bit of a public outcry after this happened, which prompted Hamilton to go back to his old ways. He assumed the pen name of Pacificus and started explaining why

the short proclamation was justified. And he said that there were three main arguments against the proclamation, and then he went on to address four. He had a problem with numbers, apparently. He couldn't count to four. Good thing he wasn't running treasury. Oh, wait, he was. So his primary argument was that the president was just recognizing the fact, right? Congress had not declared war on England, had not declared war on France, and this is just a factual commentary. And because there is no declaration of war, then citizens should not jump in and start picking which side that they're on in this dispute. He goes through his classic process of elimination analysis and says, well, it couldn't really properly belong to any other body.

It's certainly not the courts, although John Jay went over to negotiate the Jay Treaty. So maybe there is some precedent early on for the courts. Certainly couldn't be all of Congress involving the House. By elimination, it's got to be the president. And this apparently made Thomas Jefferson very, very mad. And so he convinced his old friend James Madison to, what was his quote, for God's sake, my dear sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies, and cut him, Hamilton, to pieces in the face of the public. And so Madison undertook his task, albeit rather reluctantly. And he went on to say

that this power really doesn't properly belong in the executive branch because the Constitution was peeling away the power to declare war over to Congress. And so Congress was properly someone who should have been involved in this decision. Okay, thoughts, Sarah, Charles, on who has the upper hand in this debate and whether the proclamation should have been worded a bit differently. Isn't this very similar to the removal power? Congress has the power to declare war. Congress has the power to appoint, to confirm cabinet ministers. But when it comes to removing them or declaring not war, that's the power within the presidency because it's not listed otherwise.

And you'd have to sort of do these textual pretzels. There are aspects of the Helvetius Pacificus debates. Those are the pen names that the two of them use. I would first observe that it's very interesting that the main proponents of the Federalist Papers as bubilius were Hamilton and Madison, the third being John Jay, and we've already brought in the Jay Treaty in all of this. And yet, 10 years later, not even 10 years later, there is a vigorous debate and strident disagreement between them, they who had written so passionately together just a few years before. I do think that Hamilton's view, and it's certainly expressed elsewhere when you look specifically at the war power and the power to declare war, that is the idea of moving

the United States from a posture of peace to a posture of aggression, as in someone has not already declared war on us and is waging war on us. And Hamilton's view is if we are on a peace footing, it is up to Congress to declare war. And until Congress takes such action, the obligation is on the president to preserve the peace. And so as between two parties who are fighting with each other, to say that we are neutral in that fight, he's arguing

that is fine unless and until one of them aggresses against us. Madison's coming in and saying, but we do have a treaty. We do have a treaty with France that stems back to the Revolutionary War. They came to our aid under this treaty, we are supposed to come to their aid when they're at cross purposes. And he has a great quote, because part of the argument is, well, yes, but that treaty has been basically rescinded because of the French Revolution and the government with which we reached that treaty has lost its head. And there's a whole different, you know, group of people who are running that government, so we don't have to observe our treaty. And Madison's report is, well, if there was one experience to be learned from the Revolutionary War in

this country is that one people can throw off the shackles of a prior government and, you know, and be their own nation going forward. And he says, we should still be, those are the same people that came to our aid, And he says, we should still be... Those are the same people that came to our aid, and by treaty, we should still be recognizing those bonds. That was a very difficult, you know, the horrors of the guillotine and what had happened in the French Revolution were not lost on the American public at the time. But that's why it made it such a very difficult decision on who to back. You definitely had those who were anglophiles versus those who were francophiles.

Yeah. I don't know. Madison's winning me over a little bit now, but only in the current moment where Congress is so weak that I want to give them every chance. So like, yeah, Congress did the treaty. That's okay. Let's give it to them. Like, tie goes to the branch that's sucking right now. Adam L. Well, then there's, you know, in a different class and considering presidential power, you know, Hamilton again, writing on this that, you know, I think it was under, in the Jefferson administration when he's writing against it. And there's this idea of, you know, what is war and Jefferson not taking action, even though I think it's involving the pirates on the Barbary coast and, you know, force of arms against us. And the idea is that, well,

Congress hasn't declared war. And Hamilton, under international law, just takes a very simple view. And it's like, no, the state of war is not something that's necessary for both sides to declare. When one side declares war on the other, you are already at war, and the president's obligation is to act. You don't have to wait for Congress to do something there, because a state of war exists with the aggression in the first instance. Now, that's different than whether you go ask Congress to declare war and haul in the full force

of everything that comes with that. But it's very interesting, within 10 years, they had a view having to, given the power to declare war, being with the Congress, well, what does that mean when we're, there perhaps is a view to stay neutral? What's the right course for the president to take there? And when Congress hasn't declared war, but conflict is erupting, what should the president be doing in that respect?

Can we do a little take care clause with our time remaining? Yes, let's do. So jumping to the take care clause, the phrase comes from Article 2 Section 3, basic things that the president shall be either doing from time to time or always. And one of the things that he is always doing is that he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. There's a document by an anti-federalist who writes under the name of William Penn that is talking about this in terms of... There's a concern about what is the precise division on this between the exercise of the legislative and judicial branch. And he's looking towards some of the state constitutions about how and where it's divided, and that there is more making sure that the executive is never exercising anything that can be perceived

as legislative power. And he quotes from the Constitution of Massachusetts, the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers or either of them. To the end, it may be a government of laws and not men. But then in the Massachusetts ratifying convention, there's a letter here that we have at document 36, someone named William Sims to Captain Peter Osgood. They're both members of the Massachusetts ratifying...they're gonna be part of the Massachusetts ratifying convention, and they're apparently exchanging views. And Sims brings the good...poses basically just a lot of questions about what this means. And he observes, for many cases,

he must execute the laws independent of any judicial decision. And should the legislature direct the motive of executing the laws or any particular law, he's obliged to comply if he does not think it will amount to faithful execution. But then there's the question of what interpretive power the executive has in that interim to decide what it means for him to be faithfully executing the laws. Do you have observations and thoughts on that? Oh, I mean, this could have been quoted in the Chief Justice's immunity decision. Right? I mean, so the next part, and should the legislature direct the mode of executing the laws or any particular, is he obliged to comply if he does not think it will amount to a faithful

execution? For, to suppose that the legislature can make laws to affect the office of the president is to destroy his independence and in this case to supersede the very constitution. So that's your example of, let's say, Congress passes something, making it a crime to exercise the pardon power in a previous administration or they overcome a presidential veto. Is he obliged to follow that law? And that's what the immunity decision was really about, that there are limits on what Congress can criminalize that would affect a president in the execution of his office. I mean, what they're really describing here, though, overall is departmentalism, right? That

the president might have his own duty to interpret the constitution if there isn't a contradictory judicial opinion, for instance. Departmentalism is not ignore the Supreme Court. Departmentalism is there is no court decision. Congress says one thing, you say something else. There's maybe a lawsuit pending. Who are you supposed to follow?

You're supposed to have your own idea about what the Constitution means and faithfully execute it. I appreciate the, I don't know, it's sort of this meditation on the word faithful. I think Sarah fleshed it out. I've always struggled with the take care clause and whether or not it gives discretion or takes it away. And I know the Supreme Court aspects do focus on you have to come up with your own interpretation. But I do think going back to Locke and some of the things that Thomas Jefferson was saying in the airing of grievances and the Declaration of Independence, the founders were really concerned that you would have a president just wholly not enforce a law,

not for constitutional reasons, but for just policymaking reasons. And that if a president does that, they're really now exercising the legislative power. And that's what I think they were really getting at in a take care process. So, Sarah, I think one last document maybe to, we'll wrap up this part, and I don't know if we have time to go into any other clauses, but the letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Colvin, document 39. I see you nodding vigorously that you have things to say. Let me set it up. This is, as I understand it, Colvin was a historian who was asking

some questions of people involved at the time, and in particular, Thomas Jefferson, about the Burr conspiracy, the Aaron Burr conspiracy, and, you know, an attempt at revolution and to take over the government and some actions that were taken to put that down. And so, Jefferson's giving his meditations on that before he comes around actually to the Burke conspiracy. And he kicks off with this, a strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to

written law would be to lose the law itself with life, liberty, property, and all those who are enjoying them with us, thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means." And he goes through some examples. And you can also think and know that Abraham Lincoln was looking to such thoughts and sentiments with what he believed was necessary, what he had to do as commander in chief during times of the Civil War. But that sets up a big, you know, in terms of faithful execution, Thomas Jefferson is setting up an idea that it's, well, with an asterisk, that you can't always faithfully execute the laws because that itself might be dangerous or lead to consequences to the

country that were not foreseen. Are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, says Abraham Lincoln. But look, Jefferson is a scary dude. There's a lot of things you can read from Jefferson that are absolutely freaking terrifying. This is one of them. He's giving all these examples, by the way,

and they're all from a time before the Constitution. So yeah, George Washington was like going into people's houses and stuff and taking supplies and quartering soldiers. And there wasn't a U.S. Constitution. So yeah, I guess I'm not that torn up about it. And the Articles of Confederation. Yeah, and that failed. So those are terrible examples, if you want to persuade me of anything.

We had sort of a discussion of sorts about that Lincoln quote. I got some angry emails from Lincoln Files, of which I consider myself one, trying to explain how that wasn't nearly the upsetting quote that it sounded like. But I would just say overall, I think it's amazing, But I would just say overall, I think it's amazing, the debate between Jefferson and Hamilton overall, and their two different views on how to run a government has been raging for 240 years. But we used to have roughly a political party for each. And what's sort of amazing right now is it feels like we've got two

Jeffersonian parties and no Hamilton party. So I read this and I think you suck Thomas Jefferson and there's no political party opposing you right now. And. Oh, well, I have a thought coming around to the end of what Thomas Jefferson's saying there, I don't think he is talking about perceptions of extreme circumstances of which the Burr conspiracy was won and what was needed to put down there. And so I don't think he's saying that he's encouraging an executive, a future executive to do that willy-nilly.

He does wrap up with this observation, which— But this is the Thomas More point. He thinks that Aaron Burr is the devil and they need to cut down all the laws to get to the devil? Well, when Jefferson turns around and all the laws be cut down, who will protect him from the winds that roar? I say judges, escridge and star. It's ridiculous. I get it. There are bad people out there doing bad things, but if Burr's an emergency, everything's an emergency.

Every criminal defendant is an emergency or have a military commission, but do one or the other, a military commission or a criminal trial, but we don't just suspend the laws because we all hate Aaron Burr. And yes, we do all hate Aaron Burr. All right. I am not going to argue against A Man for All Seasons, a play I think it was on the last episode or one of the couple of recent episodes where you encouraged, I think,

all of your listeners to go watch it if they haven't seen it yet. It's brilliant. And obviously, you are not supposed to have an executive that is going to cut down all the laws in the land to get it the one person perceived as bad at any given time. But Thomas Jefferson is winding around his thought after extreme times when the executive might be taking such action. He's returning it again to the idea of the necessity and the primacy of the electoral process. He wraps up with this, it is incumbent on those only who accept of great charges to risk themselves on great occasions when the safety of the nation or some of its

high interests are at stake. An officer is bound to obey orders that he would be a bad one who should do it in cases for which they were not intended and which involved the most important consequences. The line of discrimination between cases may be difficult, but the good officer is bound to draw it at his own peril and throw himself on the justice of his country and the rectitude of his motives. No, no, no, no. And we have not had time to address other documents where it's talking about...I think it's story wrapping up this, when he's talking about the lines of where impeachment

are and for what conduct one might become criminally liable, even as president, et cetera. And there would be equally vigorous views about that, Sarah, I do believe. Well, I think that sets us up nicely when we revisit this and do treason, which we probably don't need 90 minutes on treason, but we'll see. Who knows where we'll be at that point. But look, I really mean it on this Jefferson versus Hamilton debate. I do not think a republic can long survive, or rather, I think the republic has long survived

because we actually need both a Jefferson and a Hamilton. I'm obviously Team Hamilton. But I think we do need a Team Jefferson. But I don't think we can survive with just two Team Jeffersons or two Team Hamiltons for what that's worth. And so as vigorously as I disagree with literally every word in this Jefferson letter to Colvin, like there are a few things I've read from Thomas Jefferson that are worse to me than this 1810 letter. Nevertheless, I can acknowledge the need for a Jefferson making the point, if for no other reason than to allow a Hamilton who's been dead for seven years by that point, a ghost of Hamilton,

the party that takes up Hamilton's flag to continue making the point as to why Jefferson's wrong. Well, let me just say you're welcome. I'm glad to have now given you your most hated Thomas Jefferson document. I know that you were looking for it and now you have it. This is so bad. We would be delighted to be back on treason. I will tell you that class is, Grace, treason, I will tell you that class is for treason, impeachment, and rights of the mind. And so it's things along those lines. So it's not just treason and impeachment, but we bring in First Amendment. So it's also free speech and press and religious liberties. And so- SONIA DARA-MURRAY-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-MURRAY-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY-BURNELL-MURRAY there's a lot that can be unpacked there. And we would look forward to that. And as events unfold and you think modern,

whatever's going on currently should be a deeper dive somewhere else in the materials, we can shift course once again, if needed. Treason will be our infrastructure week. It's always next. Judges Eskridge and Starr, thank you once again for coming to teach a class from your Origins of the Constitution course.

We'll have the syllabus and the show notes from your readings in the show notes for this episode. And don't worry, folks, we have many more episodes to come this week, next week, all of the weeks. Things are very planned. Next up will be a conversation with Rod Rosenstein and Rob Herr on the future of the Office of the Special Counsel.