Making the Executive Great Again or a Great Abuse of Power? The Constitutionality of Trump’s Use of Executive Power

Participants: Adam White, American Enterprise Institute, & Jeffrey Lubbers, American University’s Washington College of Law

Adam J. White is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, writing on the Supreme Court and the administrative state. He also directs George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School’s C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State. In 2021 he served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States; he recently chaired the ABA’s Administrative Law Section; and he has been a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, where he remains a senior fellow. After clerking for Judge David Sentelle, he practiced administrative and constitutional law in Washington. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, National Affairs, Commentary, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, and Notre Dame Law Review, among other publications. He is currently writing a book on administration and constitutional decline. He has a B.A. from the University of Iowa and J.D. from Harvard Law school.

Jeffrey Lubbers is Professor of Practice in Administrative Law at American University, Washington College of Law where he has taught since 1996. He has also taught at various law schools in the U.S. and abroad, especially Japan and China. Prior to joining American University, he served in various positions with the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) including as Research Director from 1982-1995. He is the author of the American Bar Association’s Guide to Federal Agency Rulemaking (7th ed. forthcoming). He has also co-authored Administrative Law and Practice in a Nutshell (West) (7th ed. 2025), and has written numerous law review articles on Administrative Law. He is a member of the bars of the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia and earned his B.A. from Cornell University and J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Moderated by Alan Levine, Founding Director, Political Theory Institute, & SPA