H. Jefferson Powell is a professor of law at Duke University where he teaches courses on constitutional law and history, and recently became the first director of Duke’s new First Amendment Clinic. He has served as a deputy assistant attorney general and as the principal deputy solicitor general in the U.S. Department of Justice, and as special counsel to the attorney general of North Carolina. As a scholar, his interests include the Constitution’s distribution of authority over foreign policy, the role of law in executive branch decision-making, and the ethical dimensions of the roles of judge and legal advisor. Among his books are Constitutional Conscience: The Moral Dimension of Judicial Decision, No Law: Intellectual Property in the Image of an Absolute First Amendment, and Targeting Americans: The Constitutionality of the U.S. Drone War. Powell received a B.A. from St. David’s College (now Trinity St. David) of the University of Wales, a J.D. from Yale, and a Ph.D. from Duke.
Recent developments in the ongoing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections have raised interesting questions about the obligations of the current President — or any President — in a situation where a foreign government or its agents have interfered with the American political process or used the Internet in other ways to harm…
