America’s separation of powers, like any constitutional democracy, is upheld by the people who lead it. Top of the pyramid is the president himself. If the president has integrity, most of the rest falls into place. In Trump’s Washington we must look for salvation further down the pecking order. Richard Nixon, who believed whatever the president did was by definition legal, was not felled by an abstract system. When he ordered the Brookings Institution to be burgled, Nixon’s staff did not report him to the police.
