Yeomans: “Trump’s Continuing Confusion: Monarch or President?”

Washington, D.C., December 12, 2017 – In the latest edition of Yeomans Work, “Trump’s Continuing Confusion: Monarch or President?,” AFJ’s Ronald Goldfarb Fellow for Justice, Bill Yeomans, explores the latest step in President Trump’s relentless embrace of “the essence of monarchy”: Trump’s personal lawyer’s claim that “as president, Trump could not obstruct justice because he is the supreme and unaccountable head of the executive branch.”

“The first and indispensable rule for a society operating according to the rule of law is that no person is above the law. That must include the president, or we operate according to the lawless whim of one person. If a president can block an investigation into his own conduct, he can exercise power without accountability,” writes Yeomans.

More insidiously, Trump’s attacks on Robert Mueller, the FBI, and other law enforcement institutions “threaten to undermine the legitimacy of their findings, writes Yeomans. “The White House and members of Congress have ramped up frivolous allegations of bias within the FBI and Mueller’s team. These allegations lay the foundation for firing Mueller and rejecting the validity of the findings of the investigation.”

According to Yeomans, the key point to remember is that “restructuring of the rules by unaccountable autocrats to concentrate more wealth in their hands is too familiar, and does not end well.”

Yeomans Work focuses on the challenges to the justice system in the era of Trump. Bill Yeomans is available for media interviews. Contact Laurie Kinney, Communications Director, at laurie@afj.org or 202-464-7367.