
Edward Whelan
Distinguished Senior Fellow and Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Edward Whelan is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and holds EPPC’s Antonin Scalia Chair in Constitutional Studies. He is the longest-serving President in EPPC’s history, having held that position from March 2004 through January 2021.
Mr. Whelan directs EPPC’s program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture. His areas of expertise include constitutional law and the judicial confirmation process.
As a contributor to National Review Online’s Bench Memos blog, Mr. Whelan has been a leading commentator on nominations to the Supreme Court and the lower courts and on issues of constitutional law. In his Confirmation Tales newsletter, he draws lessons from his three decades of experience in judicial-confirmation battles.
Mr. Whelan has written essays and op-eds for leading newspapers—including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post—opinion journals, and academic symposia and law reviews. The National Law Journal has named him among its “Champions and Visionaries” in the practice of law in D.C.
Mr. Whelan is co-editor of three volumes of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s work: Scalia Speaks: Reflections on Law, Faith, and Life Well Lived (Crown Forum, 2017), a New York Times bestselling collection of speeches by Justice Scalia; On Faith: Lessons from an American Believer (Crown Forum, 2019), a collection of Justice Scalia’s writings on faith and religion; and The Essential Scalia: On the Constitution, the Courts, and the Rule of Law (Crown Forum, 2020), a collection of Justice Scalia’s views on legal issues.
Mr. Whelan, a lawyer and a former law clerk to Justice Scalia, has served in positions of responsibility in all three branches of the federal government. From just before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, until joining EPPC in 2004, Mr. Whelan was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice. In that capacity, he advised the White House Counsel’s Office, the Attorney General and other senior DOJ officials, and departments and agencies throughout the executive branch on difficult and sensitive legal questions. Mr. Whelan previously served on Capitol Hill as General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In addition to clerking for Justice Scalia, he was a law clerk to Judge J. Clifford Wallace of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
In 1981 Mr. Whelan graduated with honors from Harvard College and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. magna cum laude in 1985 from Harvard Law School, where he was a member of the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review.
For more on Mr. Whelan’s background, see this interview.
Hamdan and Judicial Lawlessness
Edward Whelan
From National Review Online’s same-day symposium on the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hamdan military-commissions case: “At the heart of…
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National Review Online / June 30, 2006
Lowering the Bar
Edward Whelan
If there were a list of lawyers least suited to assess Brett Kavanaugh’s fitness to serve as a judge on…
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Weekly Standard: Vol. 11, Issue 37 / June 12, 2006
The Meta-Nonsense of Lawrence
Edward Whelan
**Note: This essay responds to Jamal Greene’s Lawrence and the Right to Metaprivacy. Jamal Greene’s interesting essay deals not with…
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Yale Law Journal (The Pocket Part) / June 2, 2006
Partisan Ethics
Edward Whelan
After the ridiculous ethics allegations that the Left leveled against John Roberts and Sam Alito, you might think that sensible…
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National Review Online / May 17, 2006
A Public Disservice
Edward Whelan
The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Thursday morning on President Bush’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the D.C….
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National Review Online / May 3, 2006
Scalia the Originalist
Edward Whelan
Scalia Dissents: Writings of the Supreme Court’s Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justiceedited and with commentary by Kevin A. Ring (Regnery Publishing,…
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The University Bookman / March 28, 2006
Droit du Sénateur
Edward Whelan
President Bush recently nominated Milan D. Smith Jr. to fill a longstanding vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the…
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The Weekly Standard / March 27, 2006
What It Says
Edward Whelan
The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, edited by Edwin Meese III, Matthew Spalding, and David Forte (Regnery, 475 pp., $35)…
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National Review / March 6, 2006
Teddy Kennedy’s Incredible Attack on Alito
Edward Whelan
After a thorough investigation, the American Bar Association unanimously gave Judge Alito its highest rating (“well qualified”) on its criteria…
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National Review Online / January 7, 2006
Deserving Derision
Edward Whelan
Here’s a simple test. Imagine — just hypothetically, of course — that an appellate judge’s position on a complicated question…
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National Review Online / December 12, 2005