Experts in the News

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The Christian Science Monitor

Will impeachment change Trump? A Washington guessing game.

One big difference between the Clinton and Trump impeachments is that Mr. Clinton’s took place toward the end of his presidency, and Mr. Trump’s is taking place amid a reelection bid. But there’s also a big difference in their respective postures. With Mr. Clinton, “there was this general sense that he was chastened and remorseful,” says Russell Riley, co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “With Trump, there’s none of that. So there’s an enormous amount of anxiety about what he might do as president from this point forward, because he’s effectively a president unbound.”
Russell Riley
Globe and Mail

Senate votes to acquit Trump of impeachment charges

Presidential scholar Barbara Ann Perry argued that Mr. Trump’s defence threatened to set a dangerous precedent for presidential authority. Among other things, the President’s lawyers argued that abuse of power is not an impeachable offence and that Mr. Trump was justified in taking any actions to help his re-election because he believed his victory was in the national interest. “This raising of the bar on what is impeachable is frightening to me,” said Prof. Perry, director of presidential studies at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. “That leads to authoritarianism.”
Barbara Perry
Axios

Senate acquits Trump

"This opens the door for not only President Trump but future presidents to use the vast powers of the federal government against political targets," said Ken Hughes, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
Ken Hughes
PRI

LBJ and the Great Society

President Lyndon B. Johnson is today remembered largely for his failure in Vietnam. But before the war sunk his presidency, LBJ compiled a record of accomplishment on the domestic front unmatched since FDR. Medicare, civil and voting rights, clean air and water, Head Start, immigration reform, public broadcasting — fifty years later, these programs are so deeply woven into the fabric of American life that it is difficult to imagine the country without them.
Melody Barnes