III JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR has already warned of the dire consequences that are likely to follow from the majority’s decision in this case. Ante, at 29–30 (dissenting opinion). I have thus far endeavored merely to explain what today’s ruling amounts to on a theoretical level: the Court’s abandonment of the individual accountability model as applied to Presidents, and its introduction of a new Presidential accountability model that authorizes the Judiciary to exempt Presidents from punishment under law, depending on the official or unofficial character of the criminal conduct at issue.
Here, I will highlight just two observations about the results that follow from this paradigm shift. First, by changing the accountability paradigm in this fashion, the Court has unilaterally altered the balance of power between the three coordinate branches of our Government as it relates to the Rule of Law, aggrandizing power in the Judiciary and the Executive, to the detriment of Congress. Second, the majority’s new Presidential accountability model undermines the constraints of the law as a deterrent for future Presidents who might otherwise abuse their power, to the detriment of us all.
A Consider the structural implications of today’s decision from the standpoint of the separation of powers. Until now, Congress’s laws, passed by the representatives of the People, bound the People and their elected officials just the same. Law, we have explained, “is the only supreme power in our.
