Faithful Execution

About this Episode

The Constitution requires the President to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Phrases like "faithful execution" are hardly unique to the constitutional setting. Rather, they have long been signals of both public and private relationships of trust and confidence, relationships that give rise to "fiduciary duties" in law. Ethan Leib and Jed Shugerman argue that the President has fiduciary duties and that these constrain his or her power to pardon and otherwise to act.

This show’s links:

• Ethan Leib’s faculty profile and academic writing
• Jed Shugerman’s faculty profile, academic writing, and blog
• Ethan Leib and Jed Shugerman, Fiduciary Constitutionalism and ‘Faithful Execution’: Two Legal Conclusions
• Gary Lawson and Guy Seidman, "A Great Power of Attorney:" Understanding the Fiduciary Constitution
• Eric Muller, Even More on Self-Pardons (containing links to Eric's original post and to a critique by Michael McConnell)