President Trump’s likely to be acquitted by the Senate in his impeachment trial. But the impeachment’s effects won’t end until lawsuits are resolved.
Republican lawmakers are seen as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) oversees a vote on the second article of impeachment against President Donald Trump in the House of Representatives, Dec. 18, 2019.
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An expert on Watergate says that today’s House Republicans have taken precisely the opposite position than the GOP took in 1974 on the president’s power to withhold documents from Congress.
The U.S. Capitol, where the vote to impeach President Trump is expected to take place.
AP/J. Scott Applewhite
The impeachment vote is the latest, and most extreme, example of a power struggle between the executive branch and Congress that has existed since George Washington was president.
Ford, Carter, George H.W. Bush and Clinton led four of the first administrations to fully embrace policy analysis.
The Trump administration has once again tried to change immigration law, this time enacting severe limits on the rights of asylum-seekers. An immigration law expert says only Congress can do that.
On Aug. 9, 1974, Richard M. Nixon resigned and left the White House.
AP/Chick Harrity
President Trump has invoked executive privilege to stymie congressional investigators. Another president, Richard Nixon, did the same thing. It helped Nixon hold onto power – but only for a while.
President Donald Trump declaring a national emergency to build a wall.
AP/Evan Vucci
The constitutional conflict between Congress and President Trump over his emergency declaration has potential to undermine centuries of checks and balances between the two branches of government.
Will the public ever see a report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller?
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Will the public ever see a report from Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia? Maybe not. There are big legal hurdles to making it public.
Letter from President Trump to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
AP/Wayne Partlow
After the recent government shutdown and breakdowns in functioning within all three branches, it looks like the separation of powers system is broken or unbalanced. It is – and it isn’t.
New legislation in WA might provide reassurance to victims of crime, but risks political interference when it comes to deciding who gets parole.
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Under new WA legislation, the state’s attorney-general has the power to order serial killers and mass murders remain in jail, sometimes without judicial review.
The Vaal River in Gauteng, South Africa’s richest province, is polluted.
EPA/Jon Hrusa
What South Africa’s opposition parties want Parliament and the courts to do would damage the country’s democracy.
South Africa’s Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng making a ruling on secret ballots in Parliament at the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg.
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
A motion of no confidence - secret or open - in South Africa’s president will be destabilising. There’s value in ensuring that such a hefty decision is made openly and with courage of conviction.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington in 2011.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File
Laws play their role in regulating our governments, but so does our own respect for political conventions. And the way these are upheld goes to the heart of our freedom as democratic people.