Experts

Saikrishna Prakash

Fast Facts

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • Domestic Affairs
  • Law and Justice
  • Governance
  • Political Parties and Movements
  • Politics
  • The Presidency
  • Supreme Court

Saikrishna Prakash, faculty senior fellow, is the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law at the University of Virginia Law School. His scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches constitutional law, foreign relations Law and presidential powers at the University of Virginia Law School.

Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. After law school, he clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at the Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Chicago Law School. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Among Prakash's articles are "50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend," published in the Yale Law Journal; "The Imbecilic Executive," published in the Virginia Law Review; and "The Sweeping Domestic War Powers of Congress," published in the Michigan Law Review. He is the author of The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument against Its Ever-Expanding Powers and Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive.

Saikrishna Prakash News Feed

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu shared an excerpt of a recent House hearing on Twitter, in which law professor Saikrishna Prakash, who was called as a witness by House Republicans, admitted that he “[doesn't] believe” the Trump administration has the immunity they claim.
Saikrishna Prakash Vanity Fair
Again, the doctrine undergirding all those objections is legally controversial, even as it has been maintained by presidents of both parties. In a separate House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, the Republican-selected witness repeatedly rejected the constitutional doctrine of absolute immunity, arguing that those in Hicks’ position should be compelled to testify fully. That Republican-selected witness, University of Virginia School of Law professor Saikrishna Prakash, said the administration’s absolute immunity claim should be knocked down.
Saikrishna Prakash Slate
But one executive privilege expert — University of Virginia law professor Saikrishna Prakash — cautioned that the Nixon ruling does not apply to a Congressional subpoena. “[The] Nixon [case]…was…an actual prosecution as opposed to Congress being involved, and the court…set aside the question of whether [executive] privilege ought to apply or how it would apply to Congress,” said Prakash, a Senior Fellow at UVA’s Miller Center. “The [Supreme] Court has never said how the executive privilege applies to Congress if it does apply to Congress, but the lower courts seem to think that it does.”
Saikrishna Prakash Beltway Breakfast
The other issue concerns timing. "If they haven't done this by February, they're not going to do it then," said Saikrishna Prakash, a law professor and senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. By that late date, Trump's fate should belong to the electorate. Prakash isn't sure the full House would produce the votes needed to impeach Trump. And he may be right. Or it could be that Democrats who oppose impeachment have as much chance of resisting as dandelions about to meet a lawnmower. They won't resist if it's primary political suicide.
Saikrishna Prakash Real Clear Politics
Miller Center Senior Fellow Saikrishna Prakash is interviewed.
Saikrishna Prakash Las Vegas Review-Journal
President Trump and congressional Democrats remain at an impasse over a White House proposal to fund the construction of a southern border wall. The president has said that if Congress decides not to appropriate the funds, then he will “probably” declare a national emergency to circumvent Congress and build the wall. On this episode of We the People, we ask: what would happen if the president decided to declare a national emergency and divert military funds to build the wall? What statutes could he rely on? And would such an action be constitutional? Host Jeffrey Rosen and guests Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law and Sai Prakash of University of Virginia Law explore the constitutional clauses, cases, and laws at issue in this hotly contested debate, including the Take Care, Appropriations, and Takings Clauses of the Constitution, the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer case, and the National Emergencies Act of 1976 and related statutes.
Saikrishna Prakash National Constitution Center