"And When You're A Star, You Can Do Anything": The Key To Trump's Above-The-Law Behavior?

Alan: Last week -- and again this week -- "they" are GOP senators and Trump cultists.

"And When Your A Star..."

By David Leonhardt Opinion Columnist

As I listened to President Trump’s lawyers defend him in the Senate last week — and Trump himself echo that defense in comments and tweets — I was reminded of something.

Trump’s ultimate argument, most purely expressed by Alan Dershowitz, one of his lawyers, was that a president can do almost anything because he’s president. And that argument made me think of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, from 2005 (and disclosed in 2016 by The Washington Post). On that tape, Trump notoriously talked about grabbing women’s genitalia without their permission. He also said the following:

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

The more I thought about it — and reread stories about Trump’s business career — the more I think that this is Trump’s life credo: If you’re famous, rich and powerful, you can get away with much more than most people realize. In my column today, I make the case that this credo is central to understanding Trump’s business career, his presidency and now the impeachment trial.

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Trump, obviously, isn’t the full story of impeachment. Senators who are unwilling to confront a president from their own party are also central. Senator Kamala Harris was also reminded of the “Access Hollywood” tape last week. During the trial, she submitted a question, which was read by Chief Justice John Roberts:

President Nixon said, ‘When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.’ Before he was elected, President Trump said, ‘When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.’ After he was elected, President Trump said that Article II of the Constitution gives him ‘the right to do whatever [he] want[s] as president.’

These statements suggest that each of them believed that the president is above the law — a belief reflected in the improper actions that both presidents took to affect their re-election campaigns. If the Senate fails to hold the president accountable for misconduct, how would that undermine the integrity of our system of justice?

Vox’s Li Zhou has more on Harris’s question.