We HAVE to do something about the so-called Unitary Presidency

[markpkessinger]

12. The notion stems largely from Antonin Scaliia's dissent in Morrrison v. Olson

Morrison v. Olson was a case in which the court upheld the constitutionality of the independent counsel law. In his dissent, Antonin Scalia wrote:

Article II, § 1, cl. 1, of the Constitution provides: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States.” [T]his does not mean some of the executive power, but all of the executive power.

The Federalist Society then picked up on that and ran with it, developing the "unitary executive theory" that the court's MAGA majority subscribes to today, and under which they are giving Trump a blank check. Many legal scholars have serious issues with it because, among other things, it (1) violates the separation of powers by vesting too much authority in the executive branch, (2) holds that government agencies that are, by design, supposed to be independent of the executive branch's political whims are unconstitutional; (3) disregards and downplays the role of Congress and the courts in checking the power of the presidency; (4) rests on questionable "originalist" interpretations of the Constitutions that don't quite square with the historical record; and (5) leads precisely to the kind of authoritarian presidency we are now seeing, and which the framers of the Constitution resolutely opposed.