The Supreme Court has opened the door to tyranny

The old Scrantonian might claim, in one of his lucid moments, that that Republican feller was a danger to the Constitution and that, as commander in chief, he had a duty to defend American democracy by turning Mar-a-Lago into talcum powder. If he did, would he be immune from prosecution on grounds that he had acted within his core presidential powers?

Presidents and former presidents are freer to commit crimes than they were a month ago. The Supreme Court was not stating a precept that was previously implicit. Yes, a case can be made that, in certain circumstances, presidents enjoy qualified immunity. But this ruling extends that principle beyond any possible reading of the Constitution or of precedent. As Quin Hillyer put it in these pages, the decision “is a departure from text, original public meaning, and crucial historical referents.

Now, that argument has collapsed. The idea that presidents have always been free to break the law, that the Founders intended to give them that right, is impossible to stand up. The idea that kings were above the law had twice been rejected in England. First when Charles I was tried and executed, and second, when James II was declared no longer to be king. James was deemed unfit for office precisely because he had subverted the laws to push his peculiar idea of monarchy.

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