Supplies and Materials. Data Sources : U. NTUF Archive. Pensions and Perks for Former Presidents. The Perks of Being a Former President. Spending Spotlight: Benefits for Former Presidents. Bush William Clinton George W. Bush Barack H. Show Caption. Hide Caption. Biden hecklers rush the stage at his Super Tuesday speech. Share your feedback to help improve our site! There's a natural tension there -- the official duties of one branch of government conflicting with the official duties of another. The danger, of course, is that this honest protection could be used to hide illegal or improper behavior.
Post-presidential privilege? Trump wants to carry that protection with him out of office and stretch it to cover people like Bannon, who had no official capacity. It's an odd twist in a debate that's touched every single president, including Republicans and Democrats.
Barack Obama invoked executive privilege to shield his Department of Justice from accountability for the Operation Fast and Furious gun tracking scandal. George W. Bush invoked executive privilege to shield his aides from accountability for the mass firing of US attorneys.
The ultimate test of privilege came when the Supreme Court rejected Richard Nixon's argument that he could keep recordings of his Oval Office conversations from a special prosecutor. When questions of executive privilege are taken up in the courts, they take forever. Cases involving both Obama and Bush were not resolved until they were out of office. Eggleston cites Supreme Court cases from the Nixon era to argue it's actually President Joe Biden who should decide if Trump gets privilege now that he's out of office.
Trump's White House had an expansive but inconsistent view of privilege. Trump initially used executive privilege to hide special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation from Congress and the public. For the most part, these perks remain available to Trump even if he is convicted by the Senate in a still-pending impeachment trial.
That said, the Former Presidents Act is an act of Congress that can be amended, so Congress likely could strip Trump of the perks he enjoys as an ex-president. Until the late s, former presidents received no pension after leaving office. Congress changed that, in large part due to embarrassment over the fact that former President Harry Truman had little income beyond a military pension for many of his early years out of office.
The Former Presidents Act also funds office space and a modest staff for one-time chief executives. Meanwhile, the provision permitting Trump to have a government-funded office space could potentially spark conflict between Trump and the Biden administration. If he were to remarry, his new spouse could potentially be eligible upon his death. Former presidents traditionally receive intelligence briefings.
A former president is not entitled to these briefings as a matter of law, however.
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