Experts in the News | Miller Center

The Presidency

A special counsel for a special investigation

The idea is to have an outsider, someone not connected to the executive, investigate persons close to the president with the hope that the public and Congress will accept whatever emerges from the inquiry.

Miller Center

White House Investigation, Brain on Soda, Secret to Living Longer

President Donald Trump’s first trip abroad has, for the moment, shifted attention away from the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign was involved in it. The President has complained loudly about the investigation as a “witch hunt” and a major distraction from his efforts to govern. Presidential historian Russell Riley has some bad news from Trump on that score: it’s about to get worse now that a special prosecutor has taken over the investigation.

Russell Riley

Governance

The punishing reality of White House investigations

Firsthand accounts from the Clinton White House during Kenneth Starr’s inquiry may offer a preview of what’s to come for President Trump’s staff, writes Miller Center scholar Russell Riley in the Atlantic.

'You're fired' may come back to haunt Donald Trump

Four months in, it's fair to say the Trump administration is in trouble. A special counsel has been appointed to look into potential criminal wrongdoing by the President and members of his team. Congressional hearings are ramping up, with fired FBI director James Comey slated to offer public testimony later this week. Americans have heard more about Watergate in the past two weeks than any time since Richard Nixon resigned.

Nicole Hemmer

Why Sally Yates stood up to Trump

Douglas A. Blackmon, who covered the case for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and has known Yates for decades, recalled, “She was facing off in this gigantic corruption trial not just against the city’s most powerful figures but against a dream team of the highest-paid criminal-defense attorneys in Atlanta.”

Douglas Blackmon

Fox News in a post-Ailes era

Miller Center historian Nicole Hemmer, an expert on conservative media, talks about Roger Ailes and Fox News on CNN's Reliable Sources

Nicole Hemmer