CONGRATULATIONS TO PRESIDENT DONALD JOHN TRUMP FOR HIS OVERWHELMING VICTORY NOVEMBER 5, 2024!   

"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).

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

 

RECESS APPOINTMENTS TO IMMEDIATELY STAFF OUR GOVERNMENT AND TO FIGHT AGAINST DEFAMATORY ATTACKS AGAINST TRUMP NOMINEES AND THEIR FAMILES!

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CASE FOR ARTICLE II, SECTION 3 EXECTUTIVE ADJOURNMENT OF CONGRESS TO ALLOW ARTICLE II, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 3 RECESS APPOINTMENTS: 

Patel, Rollins, Kennedy, Bondi, Hegseth, Lutnick, Isaacman, Greer, Sauer, Stefanik, Bove, Chavez-DeRemer, Nesheiwat, Blanche, Kushner, Collins, Weldon, Whitaker, Gabbard, Burgum, Vought, Rubio, Clayton, Noem, Wright, McMahon, Turner, Makary, Huckabee, Duffy, Bhattacharya, Bessent, Phelan, Ratcliffe, O'Neill, Zeldin, et al.

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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, defend President Donald Trump, and promote Donald Trump's successful America First movement. 

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

Wiliams is best known for his zealous support of Trump and his appointments.  Professor Williams is also well-known for his criticism of the debt ceiling and his personal legal actions taken to eliminate the unconstitutional debt ceiling.  In Willams v. Jack Lew, he pursued a historic test-case to void the absurd and dangerous debt ceiling as being violative of the 14th Amendment. 

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

Although Williams and most 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 continue to 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.  

Our 1787 Constitution's framers were both innovative and prescient in establishing alternative methods to always insure a fully functional government: “[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. 

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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 almost 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.  

(For detailed information about LPT's founder, please view separate website top navigation page About Victor Williams.)

 

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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 traditional 10 days over Lincoln's Birthday in February 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 February 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 and celebrate his fellow Republican Abraham Lincon's birthday by distinctively signing stacks of recess commissions with his famed black marker. 

Perhaps signing the commissions at the Lincoln Memorial?

Donald Trump should immediately put his talented administration officials to work fixing America's ever-worsening problems. 

Americans are hurting and need help ASAP.   Trump's recess appointments would be a fitting tribute to Abe Lincoln. 

History records that Lincoln made many, many recess appointments including one that placed David Davis -- his  friend and 1860 campaign manager - on the U.S. Supreme Court.  

 

 

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

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Since early 2016, this 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.

Most recently, Professor Williams issued a public statement in late October 2024  to commend the dutiful and careful work of President Trump's stellar transition team. 

In particular,  Professor Williams praised Trump’s selection of  Howard Lutnick, the indominable Cantor Fitzgerald CEO, and Linda McMahon of the American First Policy Institute to serve as his transition co-chairs.

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

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Why Donald J. Trump Won:  Archived from LPT Election site: THE CASE FOR DONALD TRUMP

After a remarkably-successful career as a New York businessman, President Donald Trump built a solid 4-year record of Executive Branch and Commander-in-Chief accomplishments. 

Perhaps most important, Trump sought unity by fostering success and safety for all Americans.   

LPT asks that you carefully consider Trump's record of proven leadership: 

1.  TRUMP IS A COMMON-SENSE LEADER WHO KEPT THE PRICE OF GROCERIES, GAS,  POWER  & HOUSING LOW AND WHO MOST RECENTLY SELECTED A STELLAR RUNNING MATE IN J.D. VANCE 

Low Inflation, Economic Growth, Jobs, Deregulation, Tax Cuts, Energy Independence, Fair Trade, and Wage Growth for All.  Selecting a Stellar Vice-Presidential Running Mate in J.D. Vance who has Lived the American Dream.  Vance Bootstrapped Himself from Appalachian Poverty to Yale School Success while Proudly Serving as a Marine in War-Time Iraq Along the Way.  Like Trump, Vance is both Pro-Worker and Pro-Business.   Together they can and will fight inflation. 

2.  TRUMP IS A POLITICAL DISRUPTOR WHO SEEKS AMERICAN UNITY THROUGH SUCCESS  AND FREEDOM FOR ALL:

Seeking Unity through Success for All. Crafting Long-Overdue "Ameria First" Trade Deals That Brought Manufacturing Jobs Permanently Back to America. Instituting Historic and Innovative Criminal Justice Reform. Cutting Job-Killing Regulations. Without Fear or Favor -- Reaching Out to All Americans to Receive Rccord-Breaking Asian, Black & Hispanic Support.    

3.  TRUMP IS A PEACEMAKER WHO WILL STAND UP TO ARROGRANT, CONFLICTED  MILITARY BRASS AND WARMONGERING NEOCON ELITES: 

Mandating Careful and Strategic US Troop Withdrawals. Requiring Allies' Participate Fairly in NATO Funding. Allowing No Wars to Develop in his 4 years as Commander-in-Chief.  Obliterating ISIS.  Brokering Middle East "Abraham Accords."  Steadfastly Supporting Israel including Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's Capital by Moving the USA Embassy.  Unlike Any Recent President, Trump Actively Makes Peace.  Trump Stands Up Against Warmongering Neo-Con Elites and Arrogant, Offen Ethically Conflicted, Military Brass.  Trump Fires Television Generals.

4.  TRUMP IS A CONSTITUTIONALIST & LAW ENFORCER:

Donald Trump Honors the U.S. Constitution by 24 /7  Demonstrating what Alexander Hamilton described in Federalist 70 as "Energy in the Executive."  Appointing Law & Order Judges and Common-Sense Executive Officials. Protecting Free Speech, Religious Liberties, RKBA, & Separation of Powers. Defeating two Illegitimate Impeachment "Attainders." Fighting Corrupt Biden-Harris-Garland Lawfare Assaults (which are blatant 2024 Election Interference). Trump Solidly Supports Police, ICE & All First Responders.  Trump Knows that Having Safe Cities and Suburbs Alike is an American Civil Right.  Trump Fairly and Fully Enforces Immigration Laws.  

5.  TRUMP PRESENTS A BINARY CHOICE TO VOTERS BETWEEN HIMSELF AS AN INNOVATIVE BUSINESSMAN/EXPERIENCED COMMANDER IN CHIEF AND KAMALA HARRIS AS A STEALTH SOCIALIST/FEEBLE LEADER 

A stark choice is presented between an energetic, innovative-businessman in Trump and a failed, far-left, career-politician in Harris.  She was long known as being the most leftist California politician and the most radical U.S. Senator.

Harris is now the most radical, leftist Vice President in our Republic's history. 

Kamala Harris makes pink, far-left Henry A. Wallace looks a conservative by comparison.   Vice President Henry Wallace,  who was FDR's second Vice President, was forced off the Democrat ticket in 1944 for being too radical.

(For a fulsome archived contrast between Trump and Harris see separate website top navigation page "Why Harris Lost" here.)

 

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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.