Trump and the GOP obliterated the Founders' key fix for a corrupt president

The Founding Fathers of the U.S. had a system in mind to rein in a rogue, criminal president, one who might try to pardon themselves for their own crimes.

It was a system, however, that could never have conceived of a president like Donald Trump, or a party like the modern GOP that surrounds him, according to a new piece from The Dispatch, leaving the fundamentals of the constitutional order in disarray.

In the piece, Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg observed that a foundational rule undermining the drafting of the U.S. Constitution came from British statesman Edmund Burke, and said that in a decent society, "no man should be judge in his own cause." James Madison later added to that idea, "because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity."

"This idea lurks behind all of Congress’ powers and responsibilities, including advice and consent, the sole authority to tax and spend, the power to declare war, and, of course, impeachment," Goldberg wrote. "Presidents are not arbitrary rulers. They are stewards, with defined and limited powers."

One of Trump's latest corrupt acts, however, runs directly in the face of that notion: the settlement of Trump's suit against the IRS by creating a "weaponization" slush fund to pay out to his allies, and absolve him of future audits.

"On Monday, President Trump settled a $10 billion lawsuit a $10 billion lawsuit brought by himself," Goldberg detailed. "In his first term, Trump’s tax returns were illegally leaked. When Trump returned to the presidency, he filed suit against the Internal Revenue Service. So, as a constitutional matter, Trump is suing the executive branch he runs for a crime committed by the IRS back when he ran it in his first term... On Tuesday, the DOJ announced that Trump, his family and business will be functionally exempt from IRS audits or prosecutions from any past tax returns, literally placing him above the law."

Goldberg further laid out some of the most blunt and high-profile examples of Trump declaring himself the sole arbiter of government action, without regard for Congress. On the subject of the U.S. potentially lending aid to Taiwan if it were invaded by China, Trump said, "I'm the only person" who would decide what happens. Following the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces, Trump said that only his "own morality" and "own mind" decided the limits of his executive actions.

"It may, in fact, be legal for the president to be the judge in his own cause and create a taxpayer-financed slush fund for him to reward cronies and henchmen on a whim," Goldberg concluded. "It is already clear that presidents can launch wars without Congress or the courts unduly getting in the way. But I struggle to think of hypothetical scenarios that would be more likely to arouse in Madison and his contemporaries the—now misplaced—reassurance that impeachment was an available remedy."