Richard Nixon once tried the "it's not illegal if the President does it" approach. It didn't work out so well for him. There are plenty of things the President

Richard Nixon once tried the "it's not illegal if the President does it" approach. It didn't work out so well for him. There are plenty of things the President of the United States -- any President -- could say on Twitter that would justifiably result in impeachment and conviction of a criminal offense. allow the other branches of government to unconstitutionally limit his powers. No other branch of government can claim that authority over him. The Constitution explicitly grants the other two branches of the federal government power to put the President on trial for alleged criminal offenses and convict him. The procedure has even been used twice, though both times it ended in acquittal. It'd be three times, and probably one conviction, if Nixon hadn't resigned. The President of the United States is not a king who gets to be above the law. And even in the English legal system we derive a lot of principles from, the king was, as Sir Edward Coke famously pointed out, king under law.