In the News: William C. Banks

"The President, like every actor in our national government, is bound by the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution allows the President to take certain actions, but the list is quite short, especially compared to the long list of Congress's Article I powers," says William Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs.

According to William Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs, information received from a foreign entity could be a little murky under the law, but if someone determined the information was of value, it would be unlawful.

William C. Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs says, "the underlying tenor of the investigation was on the Russian activities themselves. Fundamentally, it was a counterintelligence investigation about Russian meddling in the election." 

William C. Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs, believes there is no "clear, positive legal authority" for active-duty U.S. troops to be at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Professor Emeritus William C. Banks says the precedent concern is legitimate and "one of the biproducts of this episode might be to impose on Congress the determination to revise the underlying law and make it more difficult for any president in the future to use the mechanism. One of the biggest open areas in the law is that there are no criteria to decide what constitutes an emergency."

"This is a real institutional threat to the separation of powers to use emergency powers to enable the president to bypass Congress to build a wall on his own initiative that our elected representatives have chosen not to fund," says William C. Banks, professor of public administration and international affairs. 

"Most experts agree that there is no crisis at the southern border," William Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs, says about Trump's claim that a wall is needed because of a crisis at the border.

"Posse comitatus isn't the only legal problem. Everything that the United States does has to be based on some legal authority," says William C. Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs.

"On one hand, it is kind of ridiculous because there is nothing approaching an invasion there," says William C. Banks, professor of public administration and international affairs. "There is no indication that there is a force lining the border that [Customs and Border Protection] couldn’t take care of. But on the other hand, if you take the Cabinet order’s language at face value, and take what the president is saying as credible threats, then it becomes grayer."

According to Professor Emeritus William C. Banks, U.S. troops can’t detain, arrest or search anyone at the border. That’s a law enforcement function, and the military can’t perform those duties on U.S. soil unless there’s no other way to enforce the law. 

Responding to immigration influxes has typically been the purview of the National Guard, such as Operation Jump Start from 2006-2008 under former President George W. Bush, says Professor Emeritus William C. Banks.

"It does look like it was not a terribly sophisticated campaign or attack," says Professor Emeritus William Banks about high profile democrats, public figures, and the CNN newsroom in New York receiving apparent explosive devices. "On the other hand, the packages did manage to get through the postal system without getting detected, so it is certainly a worrisome case."

William C. Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs, says "There are no Justice Department rules that limit the investigation in the pendency of an election. Mr. Mueller is simply going about his day and lugging the law and facts to where they need to go."

Professor Emeritus William Banks discussed Christopher Wray's Senate Testimony on a Bloomberg Law podcast. In his testimony, Wray named China as the number one threat to the U.S, and discussed FBI mishandlings of background checks and drone regulations.

William Banks, on Bloomberg Radio, discusses President Trump’s Monday comments, where he supported a "very comprehensive" investigation into sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

"The Privacy Act is a big hurdle here unless Congress takes control of the materials and tries to release them themselves," says William C. Banks, professor of public administration and international affairs.