What happens if the 2020 election results do not favor the incumbent president and he refuses to concede? In his new book, Will He Go?: Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020, Lawrence Douglas, James J. Grosfeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, thinks through this scenario and considers the capacity of our system of constitutional and federal law to deal with it.

Attorney and CNN co-anchor Laura Jarrett ’07 will moderate this discussion with Professor Douglas on Thursday, September 10 at 12:30 p.m. EDT. Questions from the audience are welcome to be submitted in advance and in real time.

Lawrence Douglas

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Professor Douglas is the James J. Grosfeld Professor in the Department of Law, Jurisprudence & Social Thought. He is the author of seven books, including The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust (Yale, 2001) and The Right Wrong Man: John Demjanjuk and the Last Great Nazi War Crimes Trial (Princeton, 2016),  a New York Times “Editor’s Choice.”

In addition, Douglas has published two novels, The Catastrophist (2007), a Kirkus “Best Books of the Year,” and The Vices (2011), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Prize. His commentary and essays have appeared in Harper’s, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times; and he is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian (US), where he is a contributing opinion writer.

The recipient of major fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Institute for International Education, the American Academy in Berlin, and the Carnegie Foundation, Douglas has lectured throughout the United States and in more than a dozen countries, and has served as visiting professor at the University of London and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.

Laura Jarrett ’07

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Laura Jarrett ’07 is the anchor of CNN’s Early Start with Christine Romans. Previously, she was a CNN correspondent based in Washington, D.C. covering the Justice Department and legal issues. Since joining the news channel in 2016, Jarrett has covered many significant legal stories during the Trump administration, and had a lead role in delivering the breaking news of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's appointment to oversee the Russia investigation in May 2017, as well as the conclusion of his work in March 2019. She also served as the lead reporter for CNN covering the Justice Department Inspector General's report on the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information.

Prior to CNN, Jarrett worked as an attorney in Chicago, with a focus on defending companies and individuals in government investigations brought by the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission. She also devoted significant time to pro bono cases, including the representation of a sex trafficking victim.

Jarrett graduated from Harvard Law School in 2010, where she was Articles Selection co-chair for the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, and published her own articles on the intersection of gender, violence and the law.