Barr’s memo on Mueller embraces a dubious constitutional vision - The Washington Post

Trump's expected nominee for Attorney General William P. Barr (who held the office during the first Bush presidency) is an advocate of the broad view of presidential power known as the "unitary executive". Perhaps angling for a job on rump's team in June 2018 Barr wrote a very detailed memo attacking the obstruction of justice case he understands Special Counsel Robert Mueller to be developing.

Bar admits that "corrupt" intent can make a president's actions criminal and impeachable.  He then sets about whittling down Trump's exposure.  Former Deputy Attorney General Harry Litman has done a careful analysis of Barr's view.  the excerpt below captures the concerns that I had in my cursory reading of the document - which requires mush more thought than I have been able to give it so far.  A flood of commentary has already begun.- GWC
Barr’s memo on Mueller embraces a dubious constitutional vision - The Washington Post: Senators must probe Bill Barr on his views about Bob Mueller's investigation.
by Harry Litman
****There are substantial counter-arguments to Barr’s analysis — though he doesn’t spend a lot of time identifying and rebutting possible objections. But it is in fleshing out his statutory conclusion that Barr wanders into constitutional territory that I believe is dubious and, depending on very plausible courses of events in the coming year, alarming.

Barr asserts that “defining facially-lawful exercises of Executive discretion as potential crimes, based solely on subjective motive, would violate Article II of the Constitution by impermissibly burdening the exercise of core discretionary powers within the Executive branch.” He later adds that “the President’s exercise of its Constitutional discretion is not subject to review for 'improper motivations' by lesser officials or by the courts.”

Barr seems here to suggest that a president cannot commit a crime or violate the Constitution if he is exercising an enumerated executive power, such as appointment, removal or pardon. To date, I am aware of nobody other than Rudolph W. Giuliani and Alan Dershowitz who have advanced this view. It is a royalist mind-set that cannot be squared with the constitutional text and structure, important decisions of the Supreme Court, and our strongest shared intuitions about unconstitutional conduct (for example, the president’s removal of an official for reasons of rank racial prejudice). ***