Neal Katyal Quotes

Neal Katyal

Profession : Lawyer

Birth : March 12, 1970

President Clinton invoked executive power a bunch of times... I think once he started doing that, the courts really pushed back on him. He couldn't use it for things that actually had a better basis. He used it for things that were personal, like the Lewinsky investigation, trying to block his aides from testifying.

Neal Katyal

Trump abuses every privilege in the same way. It's kind of like King George. Take a legal concept and then stretch it beyond all recognition, and that's what you have Trump doing.

Neal Katyal

Presidents routinely testify in criminal cases. You know, George W. Bush did it with Valerie Plame. Bill Clinton did it three times with Ken Starr. Gerald Ford did it with respect to a testimony about a Charles Manson follower. And Ronald Reagan, I think, is perhaps the most important precedent.

Neal Katyal

The Supreme Court is very capable of acting quickly when it needs to.

Neal Katyal

It's definitely true that law enforcement investigations expand over time in appropriate ways.

Neal Katyal

I didn't go to fancy schools or come from money or from a family that valued law or public speaking in any shape or form.

Neal Katyal

Merrick Garland was the most qualified nominee, not just in our lifetimes but perhaps in the history of the United States Supreme Court. The chief judge of the D.C. Circuit for 20 years, the nation's second-highest court. Never once been overruled by the Court in his 20 years. He was extraordinary.

Neal Katyal

The upshot of the Nixon tapes case was that any president is going to have an extremely hard time resisting a request from a law enforcement officer.

Neal Katyal

In general, presidents do sit for interviews or respond to requests from prosecutors because they take their constitutional responsibility to faithfully execute the laws seriously, and running away from a prosecutor isn't consistent with faithfully executing the laws.

Neal Katyal

I don't think that the Supreme Court really takes cases with kind of a theme in mind. They get about 10,000 requests a year, and what are called 'petitions for certiorari,' which are essentially 30 page documents which say, 'Hey, Court, hear my case.' And they don't take very many of them.

Neal Katyal

The nice thing about the 'House of Cards' is they did 70 takes, so it was a little different. You only get one at the Supreme Court.

Neal Katyal

Our constitutional system is defined by a balance between the public's need for transparency and the government's need to have a zone of secrecy around decision making. Both are important, yet they are mutually exclusive.

Neal Katyal

Every time a president invokes executive privilege, there are three relevant audiences he has to think about: the courts, Congress, and the public.

Neal Katyal

Even though Mr. Trump can give his campaign as much of his own money as he wants to, he can't ask other people to front the money for him and promise to pay them back later without reporting the arrangement in a timely fashion to the Federal Election Commission.

Neal Katyal

Prosecutors use the conspiracy doctrine to punish two or more people who merely agree to commit a criminal act. They don't even have to actually perform the act; they just need to have agreed to do so.

Neal Katyal

People tend to take more risks in groups than alone. For these reasons, the law has always treated conspiracy harshly.

Neal Katyal

Everything having to do with President Trump and Russia, whether it is Mr. Trump's demand for an investigation into the investigation by the special counsel Robert Mueller, or whether Mr. Trump will testify, requires an answer to one essential background question: Can Mr. Mueller seek to indict the president?

Neal Katyal

There is no doubt that dissents can serve a useful role by explaining when a justice thinks the majority has gone off the deep end. But unanimity also sends its own powerful message - one that might be eclipsed in the headlines by a sensational dissent but could ultimately have a greater impact.

Neal Katyal

One thing we know about government after the New Deal is that checks and balances through whistle-blowing is terrible policy.

Neal Katyal

Institutionalizing dissent in our agencies moves us toward a healthier democracy and helps fulfill our founders' vision.

Neal Katyal