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

Saikrishna Prakash, who co-authored the Yale Law Journal article with Devins, said that as the practice has grown in popularity, attorneys general around the country have an increasing awareness of their ability not to defend state laws. "In terms of opportunity, I would just say as more state attorneys general do this, it becomes an option," said Prakash, who is a law professor at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow at the university's Miller Center.
Saikrishna Prakash Des Moines Register
Twenty states have filed a lawsuit against the federal government arguing that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional—and this time the federal government agrees. When the Justice Department filed a brief last week taking the states’ side, critics furiously insisted that the failure to defend ObamaCare is a threat to the rule of law. Don’t be moved by selective outrage. This refusal to defend is actually more restrained than President Obama’s. And, as before, the courts will decide the ultimate questions.
Saikrishna Prakash The Wall Street Journal
President Trump's recent assertions that he can pardon himself have many wondering whether the president legally can and what it could mean for U.S. politics. University of Virginia law professor Saikrishna Prakash joins Forum to discuss the history of presidential pardons as well as the political nature of impeachment in the context of today's political climate. Join us with your questions.
Saikrishna Prakash KQED
Saikrishna Prakash teaches constitutional law at the University of Virginia and is the author of Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive, a historical study of the executive branch. There is simply no constitutional answer to the question, he said. The text is silent; the limited immunities for Congress pointedly exclude the president. Congress could certainly by statute create immunities for the president, but it has not. “There is no reason to impose a constitutional solution,” he says. Indicting a president might be a crazy thing to do; but “the Constitution can allow crazy things to happen.”
Saikrishna Prakash The Atlantic
Saikrishna Prakash, professor and Miller Center senior fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the court might decide that asking for a set of materials, such as tapes, is different from demanding that the president sit down for an interview. Trump’s lawyers are laying the groundwork to argue that a subpoena for questioning would be overly broad, he added. "They are trying to make it look like the special counsel is engaging in a massive fishing expedition," Prakash said. "They could fight the subpoena on the grounds that it isn’t specific, and that battle could stretch out for years."
Saikrishna Prakash Tampa Bay Times
While Trump has the same rights as any other citizen to avoid incriminating himself in a legal probe, the move could still hurt him. “The benefits are all legal, but I think the detriments are political,” says Saikrishna Prakash, professor at University of Virginia Law School and Senior Fellow at UVA’s Miller Center, which has a partnership with TIME. “If he pleads it, there will be many people who say that he’s hiding some kind of crime. Of course, the court can’t infer guilt from this, but we’re free to draw whatever inferences we want as members of the public.”
Saikrishna Prakash TIME