Article II and Washington's Farewell Address Earlier in the semester, we examined Article II of the Constitution which details the Executive Branch.  These first few paragraphs are just to refresh your memory of that discussion. Article II of the Constitution describes the Executive Branch.  The Executive Branch is led by the president, but he is not the only member of the Executive Branch.  Most government agencies, programs, and departments are included in the Executive Branch.  Keep in mind, the purpose of the Executive Branch is to implement, or execute, the laws.  In order to do that, lots of different government agencies are necessary.   Below is a link to the exact text of Article II, which also includes how the article has changed over the years.    Article II of the Constitution  (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. Here are a few major highlights from the article:  · The President is the head of the executive branch and Commander in Chief of the military  · President is elected for 4-year terms · Qualifications for president: must be a natural-born citizen and must be at least 35 years old  · President can choose the individuals who will be in charge of the various government agencies/departments (but they must be approved by the Senate)  · Has a large role in foreign policy and in dealing with foreign governments  · Can be impeached and removed from office by Congress One conclusion we can draw from Article II is that the Founding Fathers wanted a president to have some power, but not total power.  They were very fearful of a really powerful president, because they were concerned that he might ultimately want total power and could become a king or dictator.  This is why they created a very strong legislative branch.   However, they did create a president that had a lot of control in certain parts of the government, particularly relating to foreign policy and national security (this will be VERY important in some of the later pages of the module).  We will also examine a few reasons why the power of the president has grown since the writing of the Constitution. One thing to ask yourself, as we study the Presidency, is: does the president have too much power?  Or, do we see any "abuses" of his power?   George Washington's Farewell Address One of the more interesting addresses given by a president was the 1st president's (George Washington) farewell address.  By "farewell" we mean that it was his speech indicating that he would NOT be running for a third term of office.  Originally, the Constitution did not have term limits for president, so presidents could serve longer than two terms (Franklin D. Roosevelt served much longer than two terms).  Washington served two terms and then voluntarily said he would not seek a third term.  This was important and it set the precedent of only serving 2 terms.  However, this address is also VERY important because of what he has to say about presidential power and threats to the U ...

1. Article II and Washington's Farewell Address
Earlier in the semester, we examined Article II of the
Constitution which details the Executive Branch. These first
few paragraphs are just to refresh your memory of that
discussion.
Article II of the Constitution describes the Executive Branch.
The Executive Branch is led by the president, but he is not the
only member of the Executive Branch. Most government
agencies, programs, and departments are included in the
Executive Branch. Keep in mind, the purpose of the Executive
Branch is to implement, or execute, the laws. In order to do
that, lots of different government agencies are necessary.
Below is a link to the exact text of Article II, which also
includes how the article has changed over the years.
Article II of the Constitution (Links to an external site.)Links
to an external site.
Here are a few major highlights from the article:
· The President is the head of the executive branch and
Commander in Chief of the military
· President is elected for 4-year terms
· Qualifications for president: must be a natural-born citizen
and must be at least 35 years old
· President can choose the individuals who will be in charge of
the various government agencies/departments (but they must be
approved by the Senate)
· Has a large role in foreign policy and in dealing with foreign
governments
· Can be impeached and removed from office by Congress
One conclusion we can draw from Article II is that the
Founding Fathers wanted a president to have some power, but
not total power. They were very fearful of a really powerful
president, because they were concerned that he might ultimately
want total power and could become a king or dictator. This is
why they created a very strong legislative branch.

2. However, they did create a president that had a lot of control in
certain parts of the government, particularly relating to foreign
policy and national security (this will be VERY important in
some of the later pages of the module). We will also examine a
few reasons why the power of the president has grown since the
writing of the Constitution.
One thing to ask yourself, as we study the Presidency, is: does
the president have too much power? Or, do we see any "abuses"
of his power?
George Washington's Farewell Address
One of the more interesting addresses given by a president was
the 1st president's (George Washington) farewell address. By
"farewell" we mean that it was his speech indicating that he
would NOT be running for a third term of office. Originally,
the Constitution did not have term limits for president, so
presidents could serve longer than two terms (Franklin D.
Roosevelt served much longer than two terms). Washington
served two terms and then voluntarily said he would not seek a
third term. This was important and it set the precedent of only
serving 2 terms. However, this address is also VERY important
because of what he has to say about presidential power and
threats to the United States.
Read this summary of his address (Links to an external site.).
You can find the full version of it here (Links to an external
site.), and you might want to just skim through the full version.
As you read it, think about what Washington was saying and
whether there are similarities today to what he was saying in
1796.
Modern-Day Presidential Power
In addition to dealing with foreign governments and national
security issues, here are some of the other things we can see the
president doing (in theory):
· Oversees the Executive Branch: the general purpose of the
Executive Branch is to enforce laws. Meaning, taking the laws
made by Congress and actually making sure they are being
obeyed and enforced. The Executive Branch has a good deal of

3. power when it comes to how strictly they enforce some laws
instead of others. The Executive Branch can also prioritize
some laws over others (clearly the Trump administration is
prioritizing laws regarding immigration). This prioritization
typically reflects what the president feels is most important.
· Nominate heads of major government agencies: this is called
his Cabinet and will be discussed more on a later page.
· Nominate Supreme Court justices: when there is a vacancy in
the Supreme Court (because a justice has retired or died) the
president gets to nominate a replacement. Trump has already
been able to nominate two Supreme Court justices (Neil
Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh) and both were approved by the
Senate (remember the Senate has to approve of presidential
nominees).
· Issue Executive Orders: more on this in a later page
· Influence Congress: the president cannot tell Congress what to
do or not do. He does not have a vote in Congress and cannot
actually even introduce a bill in Congress. However, he does
have influence. He can threaten to veto a bill if he does not like
it (and vetoes are VERY hard to overturn). He can also try to
persuade members of Congress to vote a certain way on a bill.
This is particularly significant if the president is popular in the
area the member of Congress represents (certainly Trump would
not bother trying to persuade most of the members of Congress
that represent California, because, for the most part, he is
extremely unpopular in this state).
· Access to the Public: perhaps no one in our country has the
kind of visibility that the President has. He also has great
access to the public; meaning, it is easy for him to communicate
with the people of the US and the world. The president will,
from time to time, make speeches that are aired on national TV,
often during "prime-time." The President gives yearly State of
the Union addresses that are aired on multiple channels. He has
a VERY active Twitter account. News networks and websites
have almost constant coverage of him. This is a form of power;
he is visible in a way that no one else is and has the ability to

4. talk directly to the nation in a way that one else has. This is
also a way that his power has grown; there was no TV, internet,
or social media in the 1700s so presidents have not always had
this kind of access and power.
· Pardon power: As stated in Article II: "[The President] shall
have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences
against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."
Generally, this means the president can pardon anyone for
federal crimes, but not state crimes (we will discuss this
difference next week). The president can order that someone
serve less time in jail than they were sentenced to; he can
commute a sentence (meaning, end someone's time in jail); or
he can delay a sentence. President Trump has already done this
while in office (Links to an external site.).
· Here's a fun question: "Can the president pardon himself?"
Well...it's not clear. The Constitution does not provide a clear
answer one way or another, so we don't really know. So if the
president were accused of a crime, could he just say "I pardon
myself"? Yes, he potentially could.
· Here's another fun question: "Can the president be prosecuted
for a crime while in office?" Well...it's not clear, but the
answer has generally been "no" and no president has been
prosecuted. The fact that you cannot indict and prosecute a
current president seems to be a protection that the president has
while in office; the thinking being that if anyone could accuse
him of a crime, this might make it excessively difficult for him
to do his job.
· Nuclear weapon usage: here's a pleasant thought, it is VERY
easy for the president to use nuclear weapons if he wanted to.
The power to use nuclear weapons lies almost entirely in the
president's hands (Links to an external site.). If the president
were to want to use a nuclear weapon, he would not need the
approval of Congress or the approval of the military (and the
US has a bunch of nuclear weapons (Links to an external
site.)). The idea is that if nuclear weapons needed to be used, it
would probably have to be done quickly. Congress does not

5. do anything quickly, so the one person able to respond quickly
would be the president. This is another obvious example of how
the president's power has grown since the 1700s since there
were no weapons anywhere close to that capability back then.
So as we can see, the president does have some important
powers and can have a large impact on the country, if not the
world.
Executive Orders
Executive Orders are essentially orders the president gives to
the Executive Branch to do something. Since he oversees the
Executive Branch, he has the power to give some direction to
people and departments within this branch.
Some of these orders can be very simple and mundane; the
president can just simply tell a department within the
government that he would like them to prioritize something, or
he can tell a department/agency to go help people that have
been impacted by a natural disaster. Here is a website that
keeps track of all presidential executive orders (Links to an
external site.).
However, some of these orders can be very impactful,
significant, and controversial. For example, one of the first
things President Trump did in office was to issue an executive
order that banned people from certain countries from entering
the United States (this is often called the "travel ban" or
"Muslim ban.") You may remember the chaos this executive
order caused, in large part because he surprised a lot of people
by doing it very suddenly. The initial goal was to ban certain
people from certain countries from entering the US. This
executive order was stopped in the courts and the Trump
administration went through a few different drafts before
settling on one that was more "acceptable" to the Supreme
Court. Ultimately, the Supreme Court allowed the ban (it is
currently being enforced). Here is a timeline of this very
controversial executive order (Links to an external site.). We
will discuss the debate over this executive order more in a later
page of this module and in another module in two weeks.

6. This is certainly not the first controversial executive order.
One of the most infamous executive orders came from President
Franklin D. Roosevelt which began the internment of Japanese-
American citizens during World War II (Links to an external
site.). This was an extremely ugly period in US history in
which the US government rounded-up and essentially
imprisoned actual citizens because there was a concern (a
completely unfounded concern) that they might be working with
the Japanese government. We will also be examining this in
more detail in two weeks. The image above is the
announcement of the executive order.
One of the interesting debates about executive orders, is how
much should the president be allowed to do using them? For
example, Congress did not make a law banning people from
different countries from entering the US; the President did that
via executive order. Congress almost certainly would not have
done this. So is it ok that the President did something so
drastic, without the approval of Congress? Is this an example
of the president "abusing" his power? Some would argue "yes,"
that one person should not be allowed to decide who can and
cannot enter the country. Others would argue that if the
president thinks doing this will make us safer and that this is
necessary for national security reasons, then it is within his
right to control who is coming in.
So executive orders can be extremely powerful. They can be
overturned by the Supreme Court, so there are limitations.
Also, it should be noted that executive orders can be easily
overturned by the next president. Meaning, if Trump loses in
2020, the Democratic president can basically overturn all of
Trump's executive orders (Trump has essentially been doing this
to many of President Obama's executive orders).
The President's Cabinet
The President's Cabinet are his closest advisors and they each
represent a government agency or department. These are the
heads of the major federal government agencies. One of the

7. president's powers is that he gets to nominate the heads of these
agencies (the Senate has to approve them). However, there are
a few Cabinet positions that are not Senate-confirmable;
meaning, the president can just choose whoever he wants for
certain positions. The major agencies/departments are led by
someone that is typically called a "Secretary," such as the
Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense. The Attorney
General is another one of these people and he leads the Justice
Department.
Here's President Trump's Cabinet (Links to an external site.).
The job of these people is to run their particular government
agency and enforce the laws that relate to that
agency. However, since they were chosen by the president, they
do have to answer to him to a certain extent and do regularly
report to him. This can be very tricky; how do you balance
doing what is right for your agency while also balancing
keeping the president somewhat "happy?"
There is also the idea that these agencies should be somewhat
independent; meaning, that their sole purpose should not be to
only do what the president wants. For example, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is supposed to investigate federal
crimes. Their job is NOT to only investigate crimes the
president wants them to investigate (they are not his personal
police force). However, the Director of the FBI is nominated by
the president, so that can create some conflict.
Members of the president's cabinet can also be replaced/fired by
the president. He does not have to present a reason for firing
them nor does he need Congress' approval to do so. We have
already seen the president replace/fire many of the people he
had previously chosen to be in his cabinet (Links to an external
site.). The president has already set a record to turnover in his
cabinet (meaning LOTS of people have left his cabinet either
voluntarily or not). This kind of turnover has consequences; it
impacts continuity and there are often "acting" directors/people
in charge while the president choses who should be the new
nominee.

8. The size of the Executive Branch has grown considerably since
the Constitution was written. Many departments and agencies
that exist now did not exist in the 1790s. For example, the
Department of Homeland Security, did not become a federal
department until 2002 (in response to the terrorist attacks on
9/11). To be more precise, there were only 4 departments in the
federal government, and in the president's cabinet, in 1789
(those departments were State, Treasury, Defense, and
Justice). Today, there are 15 major departments. That is a
dramatic difference and as the executive branch has grown, so
has the president's power and influence (remember, these
departments partially work for the president). This is another
example of the growth of presidential power.
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There are too many government agencies to discuss all of them,
nor would I expect you to know all of them or who is leading
each of them. However, I will quickly mention a few:
· Justice Department (Links to an external site.) is led by
Attorney General William Barr. This is the agency that deals
with federal law enforcement and investigations; more
specifically, they attempt at controlling crime within the US and
ensuring for punishment for those commit crimes. This is also
the agency that recently investigated the President and whether
he was involved with the Russian government to influence the
last presidential election (you probably have heard of the
Mueller Report (Links to an external site.)). The president was
cleared of charges linking him to the Russian government, but
there still remain some questions about whether he hindered the
investigation or obstructed justice.
· State Department (Links to an external site.) is led by the
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. This is the agency that deals
with with foreign governments. Their goal is to develop foreign
policies with other governments that focus on diplomacy.
· Department of Education (Links to an external site.) is led by
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. This is the agency that

9. deals with, in theory, promoting student success in all schools,
increasing access to education, promoting equal access to
education, overseeing federal student loans, and eliminating
discrimination in our schools.
Individuals like these above, and the heads of all of the other
agencies, are very important. They can influence the priorities
of their agency and they can decide on what their agency is
going to do or not do. The President will of course have an
influence, but the day-to-day operation of these large
government agencies is left to the members of his Cabinet. So
knowing who these people are and what they value is very
important in understanding what they are doing to do as the
heads of these agencies. Trump and Presidential Power
Presidents often get accused of wanting too much power or
trying to do too much on their own (meaning, without Congress'
approval). A common complaint about President Obama (Links
to an external site.) was that he used his executive order power
too much and did this to avoid needing Congress' approval.
This is a typical tug-of-war between Congress and the
President; Congress wants to make most of the big decisions
and they believe it is their job to do so, but the president also
wants to make some big decisions and they often get frustrated
when Congress takes too long to do something (or doesn't do
anything at all). So some of the complaints made against
President Trump are not new or unique to him.
However, there have been some areas in which the president
seems to be testing the limits of presidential power and where
questions have been raised whether the president can actually
do what he wants to do. Let's look at some case studies
regarding presidential power and think to yourself, do you
believe the president should have the ability to do what Trump
seemingly wants do to.
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_______________________
Case Study #1: The Wall

10. We have already discussed this topic this semester. The basic
premise is that the president would like to build a wall (or build
some of a wall) along the southern border of the US. He needs
money in order to do this, but Congress has not given him the
amount he has requested. Trump believes Congress is keeping
him from doing his job; namely, he should be allowed to protect
our national security and he believes this is necessary for our
national security. Recently, Trump has issued an executive
order declaring a "national emergency" (Links to an external
site.) at the border which will allow him to move money from
other parts of our government and use it to help build this wall.
Some see this as an abuse of power and Congress voted recently
to stop the president from doing this; however, Trump issued
his first veto which means he will be able to move forward in
reallocating money to use for building the wall.
Here is an article discussing this situation and the president's
veto (Links to an external site.)
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Case Study #2: The Travel Ban
This was briefly mentioned on a previous page, but the travel
ban is an excellent case study regarding presidential power and
its limits. To quickly summarize this executive order, Trump
initially declared that certain non-citizens trying to enter the US
from certain countries were banned. This ban was initially
blocked by the courts using the argument that all of those
countries were Muslim-majority countries and that the president
was just wanting to make it harder for Muslims to enter the
country. However, the president argued that these countries
were "unstable" and that people in those countries potentially
posed a threat to the US, and he was doing this to protect our
national security. The Trump administration went through a
few more versions of this ban, and changed the countries that
were included in the ban; he added some non-Muslim-majority
countries like North Korea and Venezuela and took off the list

11. some previous countries. He did this in order to refute the
argument that he was only banning Muslim-majority countries.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court allowed the ban (it is currently
being enforced).
A big debate in both of these two topics is what is considered to
be "national security." Do people from those countries that are
banned actually present a threat to the US? Is there a national
security threat at the border with Mexico?
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Case Study #3: Involvement in Yemen
This is not a topic that we have discussed, and you are not
expected to be very knowledgable about this, but this topic
presents another interesting case study of presidential power.
There is currently an on-going war in the Middle Eastern
country of Yemen. Essentially, there is a rebel group fighting
against the government leaders in Yemen. The government side
of the conflict is being supported primarily by Saudi Arabia, but
the United States has also been involved and has provided
information/intelligence and weapons. The rebel side is largely
supported by Iran, which is a big enemy of Saudi Arabia and the
Iranian and US governments have generally not been friends.
Additionally, the US and Saudi Arabia have a close
relationship, so the US supporting Saudi Arabia is not
surprising. This is a brutal war and estimates are that 50,000
people have died over the last few years and hundreds of
thousands have been negatively impacted.
Recently, Congress voted to end US involvement in Yemen.
Congress clearly thought the president was doing something
inappropriate by keeping the US involved in this conflict.
However, President Trump vetoed this act by Congress, thereby
keeping our government involved in this conflict. Technically,
according to Article I, if the US is going to be involved in a
war, Congress should authorize that involvement. However,
over the years, presidents have increasingly been using the
military in foreign governments even without Congress'

12. approval. President Trump's argument is that it is his
constitutional power to deal with foreign governments and as
commander-in-chief he believes that this is a proper usage of
the military.
Here is a good summary of the situation in Yemen and the
president's veto (Links to an external site.).
Impeachment and Limits to Presidential Power
There are some important limits to the president's power:
· The President has term limits; he can only serve a maximum of
2 terms which means he can only be in power for 8 years
(remember that Congress has no term limits)
· Presidential nominees have to be approved by the Senate; the
president cannot single-handedly decide on who is running the
different agencies of our government. The Senate has to
approve of those nominees
· The President cannot make laws by himself and does not
control the federal budget. These are things Congress has
power over
· Actions taken by the president, such as executive orders, can
be overturned by the Supreme Court
IMPEACHMENT
Impeachment is another very important check on presidential
power and it is the process by which the president can be
removed from office before his term is over. Two quick notes
about impeachment: one, this process occurs entirely within
Congress. We, the people, cannot vote to impeach the president
and the Supreme Court has no role in this process either. Two,
it is a process that involves both the House of Representatives
and the Senate. So let's take a look at this process
STEP 1: House of Representatives
The first step in the impeachment process occurs in the House.
Members of the House would have to write "articles of
impeachment" in which they detail what they believe are things
the president has done that might justify him being removed
from office.
What are impeachable offenses? Well...that's not clear. The

13. Constitution does not give much guidance on what are examples
of things the president could do to warrant being removed. The
Constitution does list two things, treason and bribery, as
examples, but other than that all it says is that the president can
be impeached for "other high crimes and
misdemeanors." WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!?! Basically,
Congress gets to decide what they consider to be impeachable
offenses. It DOES NOT have to be something criminal; the
president can be impeached for just about any reason, but
the general idea is that the president should only be impeached
for something REALLY bad or a clear abuse of his
power (however, there is no clear guidance on what constitutes
"really bad").
If a majority of the House agrees that the president has done
something REALLY bad, then he is impeached. Does this mean
he is removed from office? NO! Impeachment actually does not
mean much; it just means the House believes the president has
done something bad. If a majority of the House does not vote to
impeach the president, then this process ends there. But
impeachment does not mean removal from office. That decision
is made in step 2.
STEP 2: the Senate
If a president has been impeached, then we move to step 2 of
the process, which occurs in the Senate. The proceedings here
actually resemble a trial; basically, the president is being put on
"trial" (it is not a real trial) in which the Senate gets to decide
whether the president should be removed. Just because he was
impeached does not mean he has to be removed. The Senate
may say that while the president did something bad, it was
not soooo bad that he needs to be removed from office.
In order to remove a president from office, 2/3 of the Senate
would have to agree to do that. If a president is removed from
office, then the Vice-President becomes president (the Vice-
President does not get removed just because the president was
removed). This impeachment process can also be used to
remove a Supreme Court justice from the court, and it is the

14. only way to remove a Supreme Court justice.
TRIVIA TIME!!
Have we ever had a president removed from office by the
Senate?????
NO.
Have we ever had a president impeached by the House??????
YES. Two. President Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were
both impeached; however, neither were removed from office.
Many people think Richard Nixon was impeached, but he
resigned before the House could vote to impeach him (it is
generally thought that they would have impeached him and
likely would have removed him). President Ford later granted
Nixon a pardon which protected him from ever being prosecuted
for any crimes he may have committed while he was president
(don't you just looove our government!).
Here is a really interesting article about the impeachment
process (Links to an external site.) and it includes some
information on why Johnson and Clinton were impeached.
Below is a good video that discusses this process:
Impeachment (Links to an external site.)
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Impeachment and President Trump
Impeachment is a VERY topical thing to be discussing because
the House of Representatives has started impeachment hearings
regarding President Trump. This does not mean that they will
vote to impeach him, it just means that they are investigating
and are calling people to testify to discuss what they know

15. about the president's possible wrongdoings. Depending on what
is said in the hearings, the House may hold a vote to impeach
him and they may ultimately impeach the president (which, as
stated above, DOES NOT mean he is removed from office).
Why are they holding these hearings????
Well, that is a long story and I would recommend looking at
these links (Links to an external site.) which have good
summaries (Links to an external site.) of what is going on and
why the president might be impeached.
In short, there seems to be two issues the House is looking at:
1.) Did President Trump ask the president of the Ukraine to
investigate former Vice-President Joe Biden and his son? Joe
Biden's son, Hunter Biden, had been involved with a Ukrainian
corporation that has found itself in some controversy. Joe
Biden is running for president and is one of the front-runners to
win the nomination from the Democratic Party. So to some
people, this seems to be the US president asking a foreign
country's president to "dig up dirt" on a political rival of his,
which is not a good look and might be an abuse of presidential
power.
2.) Did President Trump withhold aid/money from the Ukraine
to compel them to investigate Hunter Biden? This is a much
more serious allegation as it can be seen as either "blackmail"
or "bribery." The US government has provided aid to the
Ukraine in the past (hundreds of millions of dollars) and some
believe President Trump was going to condition receiving aid
on investigating Biden. To some people, this would be a huge
abuse of presidential power.
What the president actually did is not totally known as of yet,
and there is some debate over whether these things are actually
worthy of removing the president from office. As mentioned
earlier, we don't have clear guidelines as to what constitutes an
impeachable offense, so there is obviously debate regarding
whether these things are impeachable.
I would encourage you to read through the articles above
discussing the impeachment situation and formulate your own

16. opinions about what is going on.