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

As investigations continue into alleged Russian election meddling, potential witnesses are clamming up. Former White House aide Steve Bannon this week refused to answer questions from the House Intelligence Committee. President Trump has flip-flopped on whether he will talk to special counsel Robert Mueller. Confidants may have urged Mr. Trump to invoke executive privilege—the president’s constitutional right to keep conversations and documents secret—to frustrate both congressional and criminal investigations. While this privilege protects deliberations about national security and diplomacy, it cannot shield Mr. Trump from criminal probes. Ultimately, he would lose any conflict with Mr. Mueller over secrecy.
Saikrishna Prakash The Wall Street Journal
Our 18th century Constitution causes confusion in the 21st by granting the president great power but also demanding great accountability. Donald Trump’s defenders believe his authority forges an impenetrable shield that deflects criminal charges. His critics find wrongdoing in every presidential action, order or tweet, especially on law enforcement. Both camps are mistaken.
Saikrishna Prakash Los Angeles Times
If the president has impeded a valid investigation, Congress should turn to impeachment, write the Miller Center's Saikrishna Prakash and UC Berkeley's John Yoo 
Saikrishna Prakash
Trump has the rare opportunity to restore unity and decision to the executive branch, strike a blow against administrative bloat and overregulation, and resurrect the Founders’ designs for the presidency.
Saikrishna Prakash Philadelphia Inquirer
When the Framers gathered at Independence Hall in 1787, they confronted the task of reforming the executive branch. By the end of that typically hot, humid Philadelphia summer, they had established a unified, independent president with the power to confront the crises and challenges that would beset a great nation.
Saikrishna Prakash Philadelphia Inquirer
The president has his debt ceiling increase and there is talk that he may endorse a permanent repeal of the debt ceiling. That sets the stage for a grand bargain in which the president and Republicans can get their tax cuts and the Democrats can secure a boost in domestic spending. Leaders of the left and right have been all too ready to ignore the fiscal future when it suits their purposes, but the American people can no longer afford such beggar-thy-future schemes.
Saikrishna Prakash The Hill