LATEST NEWS:  In a February 10, 2025 Press Release, Professor Victor Williams condemns the federal trial judges who are attempting an illegal usurpation of President Trump's Article II Executive authority and discretion.  Williams encourages Trump to resist such illegitimate judicial interference in Executive Branch authority. Williams warns that the rouge judges threaten the legitimacy of  the entire federal court system.

Media Contact: 

Prof. Victor Williams                      vw@lawprofessorsfortrump.com, or 571-309-8249.

“Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government."  Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #70.

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On July 4, 2016, "Law Professors for Trump" [LPT] was founded by Professor Victor Williams to independently support candidate Donald Trump, to defend President Donald Trump, to encourage recess appointment of Trump officials if the Senate fails to provide timely consent votes for his nominees,  and to promote Donald Trump's successful America First movement.  

For over nine years, this voluntary association of legal academics has been proud Trump supporters.  We seek disruptive and innovative ways to promote and support President Donald J. Trump, MAGA, and America First.   

In late 2023, Law Professors for Trump (LPT) launched "The Article II Initiative" to provide in-depth Analysis and Explanation of Constitutional Understandings of the Unitary Executive (President and his Executive Branch) established by the U.S. Constitution's Article II.

"The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the

United  States of America."  U.S. Constitution's Article II,

Section 1.  (Unitary Executive Vesting Clause).

  (For more information about The Article II Initiative see separate website top navigation page link here.)

In the campaign of 2024, Victor Williams also became a supporting member of the Trump campaign-affiliated "Force 47:  Lawyers for Trump." 

 

APPPOINTMENTS for our REPUBLIC'S GOLDEN AGE: 

LPT supports the immediate firing of all Biden holdover and burrowed personnel to facilitate timely hiring of MAGA Cabinet Officers, Department Officials, Regulatory Agency Heads,                        Military Brass, and all  "Career/Policy" Bureaucrats!  

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Our 1787 Constitution's framers were both innovative and prescient in establishing alternative methods to always insure a fully functional government.  Article II, Section 2 empowers the President to make:

1.  Ordinary appointments with timely Senate advisory consent votes;

and

2.  Temporary recess appointments by a simple presidential commission signature when the Senate is not attendant to its advisory consent vote duties. 

LPT will continue to advocate for Trump's constitutional right for timely Senate confirmation votes for all his nominees. 

LPT will continue to decry the partisan "attainder-like" Senate confirmation committee defamation and slander suffered by many Trump nominees.   These harmful attainder-like ordeals exceed even the worst "clown show" committee hearings that have become too common. 

LTP renews our demand -- often made during Trump's first term -- that the Senate stop obstructing Trump (by fake pro forma scheduling) from exercising his constitutional right under Article II, Section 2, Clause 3 to make unilateral recess appointments. 

LPT also supports President Donald J. Trump's creative and strategic use of so-called "acting appointments" to staff our Democratic Republic.  

For true appointment disruption and innovation, LPT advocates the implementation of a "Schedule Career/Policy " OPM protocol to insure absolute Presidential Hiring & Firing Discretion over all policy bureaucrats. 

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Victor Williams is a Washington, D.C. attorney and law professor with many years experience teaching both business and law courses, practicing such as litigating against the unlawful debt ceiling, and publishing academic articles and popular commentaries.   

In addition to a graduate degree from Harvard University, Wiliams has law degrees from the University of California (J.D.),  Columbia University (LL.M.), and George Mason University-Scalia (LL.M.).  

Professor Williams is a frequent media interview guest and is a long-recognized academic expert on constitutional law, administrative law, federal courts, presidential appointments, Senate confirmation duties, and particularly Article II, Section 2, Clause 3 recess appointments.

Although Williams and most LPT members are now Republicans, LPT is not affiliated with any party or PAC.  As playwright David Mamet discreetly describes such pro-Trump associations, we are simply "a group of citizen-workers, Americans who adore our country.

Following a summary introduction to Williams and his past Pro-Trump work, including through LPT, we present below a fulsome argument advancing President Trump's strategic use of recess appointments. 

Trump can sign recess commission to timely staff our Republic's national government and to fight against despicable defamation and violent attacks against his nominees and their families.  

If Senate obstructionists dare block the Executive's textual appointment authority with pro forma scheduling shenanigans, we further argue below that President Trump should encourage House GOP leadership to trigger the Executive's textual authority to adjourn both congressional chambers for the requisite recess duration: “[I]n case of disagreement between [the House and Senate], with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper.” 

A recess commission made together with an ordinary PAS nomination gives the Senate opportunity to more carefully (and much more civilly) offer its "advice and consent" vote.  

Such a dual track process has been often used by prior presidents (for executive officials, agency heads, federal judges, and even SCOTUS justices).  

Vicious attacks and threats have already started against Trump nominees and their families.   

A dual track appointment process beginning with recess appointments will retard the fundamentally unfair, "attainder-like" ordeals of public defamation suffered by nominees in the Senate's absurd confirmation committee mud-fights. 

President Trump's 2025 utilization of a dual track appointment process would  help prevent the most obscene of the "confirmation circuses" from returning to town. 

All recess appointments carry fulsome authority and last until the "End of the Senate's next Session" (up to two years with the longstanding practice of two Senate sessions per 2-year Congress). 

And a recess-appointed official may be subsequently "re-recess appointed" for an additional term of up to two years.

Americans are hurting now. 

After four years of Democrat dystopian destruction and federal bureaucrat malfeasance, it is past time to Make America Great Again. 

"[Recess commissioning is an] auxiliary method of appointment [of offices] which it might be necessary for the public service to fill without delay."  Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #67.

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LPT Founder Victor Williams holds three law degrees:  J.D., University of California-Hastings; LL.M., Columbia University (International & Administrative); and LL.M., George Mason University-Scalia (Law & Economics).  Prior to being called to the bar, Williams earned a graduate policy degree from Harvard University. 

Professor Williams' published scholarship, covering a wide variety of law and policy areas, is frequently cited by other authors.

His academic writings include articles and essays published by the law journals of Michigan, Washington & Lee, Rutgers, Cardozo, William & Mary, Columbia, Syracuse,  Houston, George Mason, Kentucky, Marquette, Seton Hall and Loyola-Chicago. 

Williams' practice-oriented articles and essays have been published by the Banking Law Journal, Commercial Law Journal, Administrative Law Journal, American Journal of Comparative Law, Trial, Judicature, and Federal Lawyer.

For over 9 years, Williams worked to support Donald Trump and his America First policies in various projects and direct campaigns, by strategically engaging media (including the Trump-hating deranged establishment media), and in Senate appointment confirmation battles. 

Professor Williams supported Donald J. Trump's absolute Executive immunity claims against hoax prosecutions and he exposed the illegitimacy of Jack Smith's so-called "special counsel" authority.  

Williams supported Donald Trump in various other federal court adjudications using amicus curiae briefs (including by authoring and lodging briefs with SCOTUS and the Senate sitting as the nation's High Court of Impeachment).

In 2024, Victor Williams also became a supporting member of the Trump campaign-affiliated "Force 47:  Lawyers for Trump." 

Williams personally shares the American dream life experience of Vice-President-elect J.D. Vance.  Williams was raised hardscrabble in the impoverished Arkansas delta.  His hometown of Pine Bluff consistently ranks among the worst in the nation for poverty, drugs, and violent crime. 

After five years of struggle, Victor Keith Williams was finally blessed to be a first-generation graduate of Ouachita Baptist University.  Williams then traveled from Arkadelphia to Cambridge to earn a graduate degree from Harvard University prior to being called to the bar.   

Williams has been a member of the Federalist Society since founding the U.C.-Hastings chapter as a law student in 1988 and has been a member of the bar since his federal judicial clerkship. 

Williams was an early primary supporter of candidate Donald Trump and he mounted a widely-reported media/litigation campaign  against Trump's primary opponent Ted Cruz exposing that Cruz is not eligible for the presidency because he is a "natural born" Canadian. 

[[Williams now strongly supports Ted Cruz's 2024 re-election as the Texas Senator. strongly supported Donald J. Trump.  Williams encouraged all Trump supporters to rally to Cruz's side in his tough 2024 Texas re-election fight against out-of-state leftist, radical money.]]

On July 4, 2016, Williams formally founded "Law Professors for Trump" to advocate in the media and in the courts for Donald Trump as candidate and then for the Trump Administration. 

Williams penned and placed a significant number of pro-Trump policy op-eds and commentaries during the campaign and the first four years. 

Wiliams authored and filed numerous amicus curiae briefs with both trial and appellate courts -- including the U.S. Supreme Court -- in support of Donald Trump and his Administration policies.

In 2019, attempting to move the Virginia Republican Party towards MAGA and America First positions, Professor Williams launched a 2020 campaign for the U.S. Senate GOP nomination in Virginia. 

Williams ran on a zealously pro-Trump platform.  He directed his fire at Russia-Hoaxer Senator Mark Warner.   

Below, Williams announces his Senate candidacy at the Leadership Institute's 2019 Conservative Summer Sorrie by denouncing Russia-Hoaxer Mark Warner:

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Even while a U.S. Senate candidate, in January 2020, Williams filed a historic .amicus curiae brief in support of Donald Trump with the U.S. Senate constituted as the nation's High Court of Impeachment. 

In the first amicus curiae brief ever filed with the Senate transformed into the nation's  High Court of Impeachment, Williams argued that the House impeachment was invalid and that it was effectively an unconstitutional attainder (defamatory legislative punishment).   He formally served the brief to relevant parities, to Chief Justice John Roberts and to individual Judge-Juror Senators. 

Williams zealously supported  President Trump's re-election in 2020. He sounded early warnings about election corruption resulting from irregular mail-in ballots, collection box insecurity, registration fraud, and Zuckerbucks flooding into swing states meant to influence election processes.

In late October, Williams realized that his worst fears about that the election of 2020 being corrupt and illegitimate were unstoppable.  

After the steal happened, Professor Williams first pushed for direct elector appointment by state legislatures as had been predominantly done in the first forty years of the Republic.   

Williams then advocated for a contingent House of Representative selection of the president (voting state by state) just as had been done to place Thomas Jefferson in the White House  on February 17, 1801.  

Williams stressed that both election protocols are in full accord with -- if not mandated by --- Article II and the 12th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution following a failed, corrupt election.

Williams was gravely disappointed that Mike Pense allowed the D.C. establishment and washed-up, anti-Trump RINOs to dissuade him from carrying out his constitutionally mandated duty to send questionable state elector certificates back to their respective state legislatures for ratification.   Constitutional history will not treat Mike Pence kindly. 

Victor Williams still believes that the truth of the January 6, 2021 capitol events is being buried deep in the D.C. swamp and under the Biden-Harris D.C. gulag. 

The is no doubt that Attorney General Merrick Garland and his DOJ henchpersons hold the shameful shovels. 

Revolted by the 2020 election steal, Williams got as far away from D.C.--  but still in the USA -- as he could.  He took six months to invest in a property on far-away Maui Island in Hawaii. 

In late 2021 after returning to the mainland,  Williams next began something of a two-year sabbatical in Fairhope, Alabama. 

Fairhope was the beautiful Mobile Bay area village where Williams  lived for two years when clerking for U.S. District Judge Brevard Hand immediately after law school in San Francisco.

It was in deep red Alabama that Victor Williams renewed his commitment to Trump, America First, and the MAGA  movement. 

Williams began to noodle the idea of a grassroot effort to encourage Democrats and Independents to actively and pubically support MAGA, America First, and Donald J. Trump. 

A "Trump Democrats" experiment was needed in Alabama. 

In perhaps too-bold of a move, Victor Williams filed to run as a Democrat in the Alabama's 2022 U.S. Senate cross-over primary election.   

Amazingly, Professor Williams received early support running on a platform of  "All Alabamians Love Trump."  

Williams invoked the Alabama populist heritage of great Alabama Democrats such as Governor "Big Jim" Folsom.   The academic self-deprecatingly portrayed himself as equally hard-partying and hard-living as Big Jim Folsom.

He selected Alabama's Hank Williams, Sr.'s "Kaw-Liga" as the campaign theme song.  "Kaw Liga" reminds America-Loving and Trump-Loving citizens that all types of love must be expressed in action -- or forever lost.

Williams openly spoke out against the stolen 2020 presidential election and harshly criticized the horrific inflation that Biden-Harris were causing with their inane, irresponsible policies. 

Williams spoke passionately about paycheck-to-paycheck Americans not being able to afford to live. 

Williams addressed sky rocketing bills for groceries, gas, and home power.

In a surprise to party elites, the respected Emerson College/The Hill Poll showed that Victor Williams had garnered immediate support. 

Within just weeks of announcing, Williams was in a dead heat with the well-known establishment Democrat candidate (Rev. Will Boyd) who had been the Democrat Lt. Governor nominee in 2018. 

The Emmerson/Hill poll proved to Williams that a majority of Alabama Democrat "undecideds" were ready to become Trump Democrats. 

The Alabama Secretary of State initially certified Williams place on the primary ballot in accord with Alabama cross-over primary election law and Alabama Democrat Party rules.

However, leftist elites  began a media-driven cancel campaign to pressure the Alabama Democrat Party's Central Committee to remove Williams name from the ballot.   

Williams publicly pled guilty when charged with America First beliefs, MAGA loyalty, and openly professed support and love for President Trump.

Shockingly, the Alabama Democrat Party took the unprecedent step of  formally revoking Williams' certification and he was struck from the primary ballot.   

Below Professor Williams sponsors and hosts a pro-Trump booth at the 2022 National CPAC Convention in Orlando promoting Democrats, Republicans, and Independents for Trump:  

After he was stripped from the ballot by anti-democratic forces comprising the Democrat Party, Williams followed Trump's lead by endorsing Republican Katie Britt for the crossover primary and then endorsing Britt for the general election.   

Telling Insult to Elector Injury:  The Alabama Democrat Pary refused to refund Williams' $3500 filing fee paid to the party for primary ballot access. 

Still, the experience was invaluable as it proved to Williams that Trump had support among Democrats and Independents as well a most Republicans. 

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 LPT will continue to advocate for Trump's constitutional right for timely Senate confirmation votes for all his nominees.

Perhaps most importantly for 2025, LTP renews our demand -- often made during Trump's first term -- that the Senate stop obstructing Trump from exercising his constitutional right under Article II, Section 2, Clause 3 to make unilateral recess appointments.

The Senate has engaged in a nonconstitutional pattern and practice of obstructing Executive recess appointment authority through shameful pro forma sham sessions every 3 days during breaks.

LPT now strongly encourages President Trump to consider exercising his Article II, Section 3 constitutional right to formally adjourn both congressional chambers for at least the 10 days SCOTUS says is usually needed for recess appointments. 

In NLRB v. Noel Canning (2014), the high court created a presumptive 10-day recess duration requirement but acknowledged that recess appointments during breaks of only 3 days were allowable in the event of a national catastrophe:  

"We therefore conclude, in light of historical practice, that a recess of more than 3 days but less than 10 days is presumptively too short to fall within the Clause. We add the word "presumptively" to leave open the possibility that some very unusual circumstance—a national catastrophe, for instance, that renders the Senate unavailable but calls for an urgent response—could demand the exercise of the recess-appointment power during a shorter break."

If the Senate continues past Reid-McConnel-Schumer pro forma session obstruction, President Trump can work directly with the GOP House leadership to fully staff our Republic's government. 

The House can simply "disagree" with the upper chamber's scheduling shenanigans.   Such adjournment disagreement  textually triggers the Executive's Article II, Section 3 power to "adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper."  

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Donald J. Trump honors the U.S. Constitution by vigorously exercising "Energy in the Executive"  -- a character trait that Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper 70 described as absolutely necessary for our Republic: 

“Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.”

Addressing “The People of the State of New York” to urge ratification of the 1787 Federal Constitution, Hamilton detailed why a robust president was needed:

“It is essential to the protection of the community against foreign attacks: It is not less essential to the steady administration of the laws, to the protection of property....”

As a New Yorker like Hamilton, Trump is wasting no time in selecting excellent women and men to staff our government in 2025.  Like Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway Hamilton, Donald Trump is "Non-Stop."

The man 47 is indeed non-stop! 

Only Trump has the courage and insight to invoke the framers' decision to give the Executive the power to adjourn Congress so as to jump-start a common-sense government with recess commissions. 

Donald Trump personifies the strong, robust leader envisioned by Hamilton and other constitutional framers -- such as another New Yorker Gouverneur Morris.   

The less well known Constitutional Convention Delegate Morris elegantly edited the final constitutional text and authored the Constitution’s Preamble in his service on the Constitutional Convention’s Committee on Style.  

As New York's senior Delegate, Morris was lauded by Virginia Delegate James Madison and subsequent American historians as the "Constitution's Penman."

Although Morris never made it to Broadway contemporary fame, he was -- perhaps even more so than Hamilton -- a prescient leader who championed a dynamic, robust, energetic presidency. 

Our Constitution's framers and ratifiers knew that a strong Executive was  needed to:  1. efficiently administer the government; 2. directly protect the people's rights; and 3. strategically check the conflicted, divided, often lethargic legislature.  

It with that original understanding of  a robust presidency and the importance of "energy in the executive" that LPT argues that President Trump should be given opportunity to sign recess commissions for each of his stellar choices to put them to work immediately -- even as he nominates the individual for ordinary PAS confirmation. 

The U.S. Constitution textually offers an Executive two different -- yet complimentary -- ways to make appointments.

Article II, Section 2's first way involves presidential nomination followed by a Senate confirmation vote with the President eventually signing the commission. 

Article II, Section 2's second and more efficient method allows the President to simply sign an appointment commission when the Senate is in a recess. 

The Constitution's two appointment methods working together insure a fully-functioning national government. 

Thirty federal judges, including five Supreme Court justices, were recess appointed by the first five presidents.

Starting with George Washington, every U.S. President has made recess appointments  -- except Donald Trump who was repeatedly blocked by Senate scheduling shenanigans and Joseph Biden who did not have enough energy to leave his Delaware beach haven during holidays much less attempt a recess action.  

Notably, Republican President Ulysses Grant recess appointed the nation's very first U.S. Solicitor General. 

Republican Theodore Roosevelt was a recess champion.  On December 7, 1903, Teddy Roosevelt signed 193 recess commissions during a Senate break that lasted for less than a New York minute.    

Ronald Reagan made nearly 250 recess appointments.  One-termers Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush each made around 75.  Bill Clinton recess appointed 139 officials, George W. Bush made 171, and Barack Obama trailed with 32.  

Over 300 federal judges have risen to the bench via a recess appointment including many SCOTUS justices. 

President John F. Kennedy pushed back against a recalcitrant, obstructionist Senate by recess commissioning over 20 percent of his federal judge appointments.  JFK recess appointed Thurgood Marshall to integrate the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The first Jewish federal judges, the first female federal judges, and the first black federal judges rose to the bench by recess appointment. 

Throughout our constitutional history, recess appointments have been used by presidents to transform departments, agencies and courts.

Consider the immediate transformative effect of recess commissions and concurrent PAS nominations for left-leaning federal judicial nominees:  Earl Warren, William Brennan, William Hastie, David Bazelon, Skelly Wright, Irving Ben Cooper, Thurgood Marshall, and Griffin Bell.

The recess appointment-concurrent PAS nomination dual strategy has  been used most effectively during fundamentally transformative times in our Republic -- as this America First/MAGA era surely is. 

If elections have consequences, the Republican-controlled Senate will just go away for their scheduled 14 day break in April 2025.  

Senate Majority Leader John Thune should just turn out the lights and shut off the C-SPAN2 cameras.  Before going back to South Dakota (or somewhere warmer) for the 14 day scheduled break, Leader Thune should cancel the shameful pro forma sham sessions that have been run every 3 days during breaks -- meant to block recess appointments. 

No surprise that it was hyper-partisan Majority Leader Harry Reid who began the pro forma session nonsense in 2007.  Leader Thune should not continue the shameful Reid-McConnell-Schumer pro forma scheduling shenanigans.

Trump can honor the Constitution over the Senate's scheduled April recess by distinctively signing stacks of recess commissions with his famed black marker. 

Americans are hurting and need help ASAP.   .

 

 

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Professor Williams has defended the Executive's right to use the recess commission alternative for his entire academic career over the span of several presidents. 

Williams defended Obama's presidential recess appointment authority in 2014 Supreme Court arguments although he quite often disagreed with President Obama's policies and personnel choices.   

Victor Williams debated Georgetown Law's Nick Rosencranz at a Federalist Society/CATO event in 2014 about promoting recess appointment authority for future presidents.

The Supreme Court subsequently affirmed this unilateral Executive commissioning right in 2014 (NLRB v. Noel Canning). 

Although the majority opinion unnecessarily added a requirement for a 10-day Senate recess duration to the Constitution's text, SCOTUS affirmed the Executive's right to make recess appointment during intra-session breaks and for all types vacancies. 

But if the Senate does not recess for the requisite duration, Trump has the option to convince the GOP House of Representatives majority to "disagree" with the upper chamber's proposed recess/adjournment schedule. 

Such a disagreement between the two houses of Congress triggers Trump's constitutional power and textual discretion to formally adjourn the Congress.   

The Constitution's framers and ratifiers were quite serious about institutionalizing "energy in the executive." 

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Media Contact:

Prof. Victor Williams

571-309-8249

Founder and Senior Counsel

Article II Initiative/Law Professors for Trump 

vw@lawprofessorsfortrump.com

victorkeithwilliams@gmail.com (personal email account)

 

The Article II Initiative/Law Professors for Trump is an independent academic association and is not connected to any campaign or PAC.  

As a voluntary citizen group that so-called  "Special Counsel" Jack Smith might otherwise name as a "conspiracy," we do not raise or spend more than the FEC registration and nominative threshold of $1,000 in a calendar year

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Victor Keith Williams is responsible for the LPT's website, its content, its too numerous typos, and he usually approves its message.