The recent casual acknowledgement by the White House Chief of Staff that the President is engaged in prosecutorial “score settling” marks a dangerous departure from the rule-of-law norms that restrain executive power in a constitutional democracy. This admission that the State is using its legal authority to punish perceived enemies is antithetical to core Constitutional principles and the rule of law.

The American experiment was built on the rejection of personal rule and political revenge, replacing them with laws that bind even those who hold the highest offices. In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote, “For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.” The essence of these words can be found in our Constitution that deliberately placed power in the hands of three co-equal branches of government–Legislative, Executive, and Judicial.