The battle between Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and Trump Appointed Federal Judge Cannon in the Classified Documents case involves many complex issues about presidential power and judicial bias. But lurking in the background is a recurrent theme whenever one is talking about Trump. What is the “President” in our nation?
The answer is: it depends. Trump views the presidency his way. All prior presidents (yes, all, even Tricky Dick) had a different idea.
Our Constitution created three branches of government, Article I established the Legislative Branch. Article II created the Executive Branch and Article III describes the Judicial Branch. Articles I and III clearly define and create institutions. There is the House of Representatives and the Senate. There are federal courts and judges that occupy those courts, But only the Executive Branch in all four sections refers to a single person called the “President.” So you might conclude that Article III is really about one human being and his power.
From the very first person elected president, George Washington, the person understood that “the office” was bigger than the person. And over the following decades, the office or “branch” of government grew in complexity to serve its purpose, which as stated in the oath was to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
The presidency’s physical institution is the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, located just west of the White House. The people, entities, and agencies who help the president—who make up that bureaucracy—are called the president’s cabinet and the Executive Office of the President. Tbe Cabinet took time to evolve. Initially, tbe cabinet was composed of the Secretary of War, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Attorney General. Think of the cabinet as the major executive agencies’ leaders and anyone else designated by the president to sit with that group. With the exception of the Vice President, cabinet members are approved by the Senate. In modern times, presidents typically do not gather all of their cabinet members at once and have real deliberations over policy—photo ops, maybe, but not true deliberations. Instead, presidents will gather some cabinet members as needed to discuss particular policy issues. As of this writing, the cabinet consists of the following offices:
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Health & Human Services
Attorney General
Secretary of Homeland Security
Secretary of Transportation
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary of the Treasury
Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of the Interior
U. S. Trade Representative
Secretary of Defense
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
Secretary of Education
Director of the Office of Management & Budget
Vice President
Secretary of Energy
Director of National Intelligence
White House Chief of Staff
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Admin of the Small Business Administration
The Executive Office of the President was created by Congress during the Franklin Roosevelt administration when the demands of modern government made it clear that the presidency needed a more extensive organization. The Executive Office of the President employs several thousand people. It comprises staff and agencies that directly support the president.
Every president has chosen to treat their election as an appointment to chair a large agency. They understood that the Office of the President was distinct from the person elected to serve the nation in that position. Each president has delegated tasks. Each president has accepted the reality that only the really vital decisions reach their desk; less weighty matters are resolved by staff and executive branch department personnel. Trump, however, is different. He views himself and The Office as one and the same. Thus, he makes the rules. He decides what is a classified document. He does not rely on an “Office of Pardons”; he just pardons.
Our Democracy was intended to be a team sport. Donald Trump does not play team sports. Americans will decide in November 2024 whether it wants what we had for all those years before Trump or if it prefers Trump’s country.