Over recent months, we’ve expanded HeinOnline’s Executive Privilege database with fresh documents. Here, researchers can explore the prerogative of the U.S. president to safeguard specific information from subpoenas and other scrutiny by the legislative and judicial branches. Let’s take a look at what’s new.

2023 Documents

Fourteen documents from 2023 address a variety of topics. Among the most prominent are the events of January 6th, Congressional requests for Trump’s tax returns, and the investigation into classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Additionally, there’s a significant collection of documents related to United Affiliates Corp. v. United States. This case revolves around the government’s repeated use of the “deliberative process privilege” to block FOIA and discovery requests concerning a West Virginia coal mine. The mine was initially approved for operation during the Bush administration but later revoked during the Obama administration.

Here is a list of all the 2023 documents that were added:

1. Memorandum Opinion, America First Legal Foundation v. United States Department of Agriculture, No. 22-3029 (July 18, 2023) – Howell, Beryl A.
2. Memorandum Opinion, Crew v. U.S. Dept. of the Army, No. 21-cv-2482 (DLF) (D.D.C. June 14, 2023) – Friedrich, Dabney L.
3. Behar v. United States Department of Homeland Security, Nos. 20-3253(L), 20-3256(Con) (2d Cir. 2022) – Menashi, Steven J.
4. Donald J. Trump v. United States, No. 22-13005 (11th Cir. Dec. 1, 2022) – Pryor, William; et al.
5. H. Comm. on Ways & Means v. Trump, No. 21-5289 (D.C. Cir. 2022) – Sentelle, David B.
6. In the Matter of the 2022 Legislative Districting of the State, Misc. Nos. 21, 24, 25, 26, 26 (Md. 2022) – McDonald, Robert N.
7. Memorandum Opinion and Order, Swalwell v. Trump, No. 1:21-cv-00858-APM – Mehta, Amit P.
8. Memorandum Opinion and Order, United States v. Navarro, No. 22-cr-200 (APM) (D.D.C. 2022) – Mehta, Amit P.
9. Memorandum Opinion, Cause of Action Institute v. United States Department of Commerce, No. 19-cv-2698 (DLF) (D.D.C. 2022) – Friedrich, Dabney L.
10. Memorandum Opinion, Georgia v. United States Department of Justice, No. 1:21-cv-03138 (TNM) (2023) – McFadden, Trevor N.
11. Memorandum Opinion, Greenspan v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, No. 2021-1968 (D.D.C. 2022) – McFadden, Neil
12. Opinion and Order, United Affiliates Corp v. United States, No. 17-67 L (Fed. Cl. 2023) – Meyers, Edward H.
13. Opinion and Order, United States v. Sutton, No. 2021-0598 (D.D.C. 2022) – Friedman, Paul L.
14. Trump v. Mazars, No. 21-5176 (D.C. Cir. 2022) – Srinivasan, Sri

2024 Documents

The seven documents from 2024 consist entirely of court documents concerning the events of January 6th and former President Trump’s assertions of immunity in United States v Trump:

1. Blassingame v. Trump, No. 22-5096 – Srinivasan, Padmanabhan Srikanth
2. Brief in Opposition to Petition for Writ of Certiorari before Judgment, United States v. Trump, 23-624 – Sauer, D. John
3. Brief of Alabama and 18 Other States as Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent Donald J. Trump, United States v. Trump, No. 23-624 – LaCour, Edmund G. Jr.
4. Brief of Former Attorney General Edwin Meese III and Law Professors Steven G. Calabresi and Gary S. Lawson as Amici Curiae Supporting Neither Party, United States v. Trump, No. 23-624 – Schaerr, Gene C.
5. Motion to Expedite Briefing on the Petition for a Writ of Certiorari before Judgment and for Expedited Merits Briefing if the Court Grants the Petition, United States v. Trump, No. 23-624 – Smith, Jack L.
6. Petition for Certiorari Before Judgment, United States v. Trump, No. 23-624 – Smith, Jack L.
7. Reply Brief of Petitioner, United States v. Trump, No. 23-624 – Smith, Jack L.

About the Executive Privilege Database

Included in select U.S. and Canadian Core subscriptions at no additional charge!

To help understand this mighty but ill-defined power, HeinOnline’s new Executive Privilege database provides primary and secondary source material such as government documents from the executive, legislative, and judicial branches as well as related books and scholarly articles. Peruse congressional hearings, reports, memoranda, and more, as well as law review articles and books that invoke, debate, and explore instances of executive privilege from our country’s founding to the present day.

Features

Unique Browse Tools

Browse through various government documents by title, author, branch, administration, privilege, or even controversy.

Customer Search Index

Use the custom search index to search the full text of all documents by keyword, creator/author, title, or administration.

Books & Scholarly Articles:

Discover links to a wealth of related scholarly works, carefully selected by HeinOnline editors for their relevance to the database.

About the Editor

Maxwell D. Anderson is a graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Law (2019). During law school, he immersed himself in constitutional law and soon became interested in executive privilege, about which he wrote a seminar paper and an independent study paper. While conducting research for his in-depth work on the topic, he began collecting and cataloging primary source material related to executive privilege, eventually amassing a treasure trove of topical documents, complete with spreadsheets of references and cross-references. In the fall 2017 semester, he interned in the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs in Washington, D.C., where he gained an appreciation for apolitical relationship-building. Before law school, he graduated magna cum laude from the University of North Texas, where he double majored in political science and communication studies with an emphasis in rhetoric.

Presidential Reports, Executive Orders, and More!

Although the Executive Privilege database covers a very specific aspect of presidential power, there is much more to explore in HeinOnline. We have three other databases dedicated to all things presidential.

1. U.S. Presidential Library
As the head of state and government of the United States of America, the president is one of the most influential and noteworthy political figures in the world. Though the main responsibility of the presidency has not changed since the drafting of the U.S. Constitution—ensuring the faithful execution of U.S. law—the office, its powers, and its expectations have been molded by the various individuals who have entered it over the centuries. The role that each American president has played reflects the evolution of the United States government, society, and standing on the world stage.

Research the impact of each president with HeinOnline’s U.S. Presidential Library, a database of more than 2,200 titles and 1.1 million pages dedicated to presidential documents. The database includes messages and papers of the presidents, daily and weekly compilations of presidential documents, public papers of the presidents, documents relating to impeachment, Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), and a host of other related works.

2. U.S. Presidential Impeachment Library
Impeachment proceedings in the United States are rare. Presidential impeachments are even rarer. Since 1789, the House of Representatives has initiated impeachment proceedings only 62 times, and just 19 of these have led to full impeachments. Eight federal judges have been convicted and removed from office by the Senate, but thus far no president has met the same ignominious fate. Yet despite its rarity, presidential impeachment is arguably what we associate most closely with the broader topic of impeachment.

What is impeachment? Broadly, it allows a legislature to hold government officials accountable for alleged crimes. For presidents, impeachment is a process that allows the House of Representatives to bring charges against and investigate a president. Andrew Johnson was the first president to have impeachment proceedings initiated against him in 1868, Nixon was almost impeached (but resigned first) in 1974, and Bill Clinton was impeached following a wide-ranging investigation in the late 1990s. Most recently, one of these rare impeachment proceedings was brought against the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump, in 2019 and again in 2021.

3. Reports of U.S. Presidential Commissions
For more than a century, presidents have created advisory groups (also called committees, commissions, boards, blue-ribbon panels, or task forces) to advise them on particular problems or issues. Typically the group’s task is to analyze a situation, give an explanation for the cause of the problem, and make recommendations for change.

Reports of U.S. Presidential Commissions and Other Advisory Bodies: A Bibliographic Listing is a unique resource containing the most current and extensive listing of publications created by these types of presidential advisory bodies. The resource is essential in discovering and analyzing the policies of U.S. presidents, as presidential commission reports help determine the administrative and political priorities of various administrations.

HeinOnline has transformed the resource into a crucial online archive for researchers interested in United States history, political science, and law. In both print and online, browse the comprehensive index of more than 6,900 entries by the commission name, report title, report subject, and more.

Let Us Research For You

Don’t forget about the HeinOnline Blog, filled with posts on topics for any researcher! We even have a category dedicated to Political Science. Here are just some of the more recent posts we’ve covered on recent and historical presidential events:

• The 15 Most Inspiring Presidential Speeches in American History
• Primaries vs. Caucuses: How Presidential Nominees Are Chosen
• 12 of the Boldest Executive Orders in U.S. History to Kick Off Your Presidents Day
• Decision in Trump’s Immunity Claim Now in HeinOnline
• Special Purpose Grand Jury Report Now Available in HeinOnline