John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.  He is also a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s new School of Civic Leadership and a senior fellow at its Civitas Institute.

Professor Yoo’s latest book is The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court (2023) (with Robert Delahunty).  Other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power (2020); Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War (2017) (with Jeremy Rabkin); Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare (2014); Taming Globalization (2012) (with Julian Ku); and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush (2010).

Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including the Presidency, national security, constitutional law, and the Supreme Court.  He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.

Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government.  On 9/11, he was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues.  He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.  He has been a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.

The Watergate-era congresses embarked on a successful campaign to limit presidential power.  In his talk, John Yoo will explain why Trump seeks to overthrow that régime.  In the process, he may usher in a new era that takes power away from a vast, unaccountable Administrative State and returns responsibility to the people’s elected representatives, the President and Congress.  Far from random attacks on the legal establishment, John Yoo will explain why the Trump administration is challenging a body of Watergate-era “reforms” that have disrupted presidential control over the executive branch and, as a result, dissipated “energy in the executive,” which Alexander Hamilton called “the leading character in the definition of good government.”