Donald Trump is exposing how much of the presidency relies purely on tradition

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 23 December 2016

President-elect Donald Trump has not released his tax returns. He has not given a formal press conference since his election. He wants his private security team to supplement the Secret Service. He is skipping many intelligence briefings because he is, "like, a smart person." And none of those things — along with many of the incoming president's other unconventional choices — are against the law.

As Politico explains in a new analysis Friday, Trump's decision to flout tradition at every turn "is shining a light on how much of the American political system is encoded in custom," not law. Much of what we expect the president to do and say is not grounded in any requirement more formal than longstanding practice — and that suits Trump just fine. "If it's not written down, you can get away with it," says Trump biographer Gwenda Blair. "That's the new premise."

The question once Trump takes office is how much he will push boundaries with real legal heft. As a candidate, Trump "said things that were clearly unconstitutional, but there's no legal prohibition about saying you're going to do something unconstitutional," explains Richard Painter, formerly chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush. But there is a legal prohibition "against doing something unconstitutional," and Trump will have to learn the difference if he wants to avoid offering grounds for impeachment to critics ready to pounce.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox