Think about this phrase: “No president is above the law.”
It is difficult to keep track of how many times this lovely platitude has been regurgitated in one form or another by our political leaders, so-called experts, scholars and more.
How many times have you turned on the television in the last four years to yet another news story about President Donald Trump possibly breaking this or that law? Of course, there’s never a need to worry because some pundit or political figure is always there to remind us that no president is above the law.
But, what does being “above the law” even mean? And does it apply to our president?
To answer the first question, to be “above the law” is to think oneself so grandiose or important that there is no need to obey law — the rules don’t apply to you, and you can do whatever illegal thing your heart desires without fear of accountability.
The latter question is a bit more complex.
The U.S. Constitution says, albeit in different terms, that no president is above the law.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution specifically states, “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The Constitution clearly grants Congress the authority to hold presidents accountable for their unlawful actions. In practice, however, this constitutional principle has been thwarted time and time again.
If you were to look solely at Trump’s actions during his presidency, it is clear the constitutional principle is not always upheld.
In the summer of 2019, Trump directed the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to withhold $400 million of military aid from Ukraine. Allegedly, this was an attempt to put pressure on Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden’s son.
A whistleblower came forward with this information, and after a formal impeachment inquiry launched in September 2019, the House of Representatives filed two articles of impeachment against Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
In early January, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office concluded that the Trump administration violated federal law when he directed officials to freeze the already congressionally-appropriated funds to Ukraine.
Despite being found guilty by the GAO, the Republican-controlled Senate blocked witnesses and documents from being presented mid-trial, and ultimately acquitted him.
The argument could be made that since Trump went through the impeachment process, he was held accountable by the Constitution’s standards. However, the articles of impeachment were narrow in scope, and did not include a myriad of Trump’s other possible crimes and violations.
The articles of impeachment did not include: his violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments clauses by retaining ownership and interests in his businesses; his campaign finance violations when he directed his personal lawyer Michael Cohen — who is currently in prison for campaign finance violations, fraud and more — to pay two women hush money after claiming they had affairs with the president; or the 10 times he possibly obstructed justice, which were uncovered by Robert Mueller’s investigation on Russia — just to name a few.
Since his acquittal, the president has continued to act unlawfully and has outright endangered the American public.
Trump continually downplayed the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and actively discouraged mask wearing and state-wide shutdowns.
While he was feeding lies about the virus to the American people, recently released audio tapes by acclaimed journalist Bob Woodward reveal that Trump has known all along just how deadly the virus is.
In tapes from Feb. 7 — a month before Trump tweeted, “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu … Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on” — he told Woodward that the coronavirus spreads through air and is far deadlier than other flus.
Woodward’s tapes prove Trump actively lied to Americans about the virus, and those lies arguably cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives.
Though lying is not typically seen as an impeachable offense, the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 charged former President Richard Nixon for deceiving the public.
Nixon was never formally impeached because he resigned, but the articles passed by the House Judiciary Committee set a precedent for punishments regarding lies and misinformation.
But let’s be clear about something: the issue of whether or not a U.S. president is above the law stretches far beyond Trump’s lies and countless unlawful actions.
When Nixon resigned, former President Gerald Ford pardoned him for the role he played in the Watergate scandal. This was the first inkling that presidents can, and will, get away with any crime. Nixon never went to prison for his unequivocally illegal actions.
Fast forward a few decades, and former President George W. Bush and his administration went on to commit more arguably unlawful acts.
A 2008 analysis by The Center for Public Integrity concluded that Bush and seven of his top officials “made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.”
Bush’s statements alone account for at least 260 of those 935 false, or misleading statements, according to the report. These numerous lies and falsehoods lead to the Iraq invasion in 2003.
Richard Clarke, a former Bush administration counterterrorism official, said in a Democracy Now! interview that the lies and orchestrated campaign of misinformation continued as Bush and friends sanctioned unlawful acts in Iraq: “I think things that they authorized probably fall within the area of war crimes.”
Iraqis in Abu Ghraib were tortured, abused and subjected to what has been referred to as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” such as being stripped naked and being waterboarded.
Fast forward another decade and a half, and the president is still committing crimes — and there are too many to count.
If Nixon can be pardoned for obstruction of justice, if Bush can face zero consequences for the Iraq war and if Trump can remain in office after breaking countless laws, it begs the question:
Is the president of the United States truly above the law?
Unfortunately, yes.
