Just leaders serve the state, not themselves

orders, and removing Congress’ lawful access to White House staff involved in alleged breaches of federal and international laws limits the system’s ability to operate as it was intended.

Steve Denning of Forbes Magazine says these acts defy ‘‘the American system of checks and balances among the three co-equal branches of government. They constitute an unprecedented coordinated assault on the rule of law’’.

In my occasional attempts at mature empathy for my Republican compatriots, I remember how I felt about President Clinton’s impeachment trial when Republicans used the same Congressional tools as today’s Democrats to uncover Clinton’s alleged acts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and contempt of court.

I didn’t really care that Clinton had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky; I liked his policies and supported his political perspectives. But it did bother me that the president I helped to elect might be subverting the law by slanting information in such a way that the lines of truth were, perhaps, crossed.

Trump’s circuses of hiring bona fide crooks to cover up dozens of his sexual and financial transgressions, perpetual efforts to flout nepotism laws, and encouraging at least one clandestine intervention into US elections by a foreign intelligence service make Clinton’s sins seem juvenile.

Such rule-twisting manipulation of centuriesold norms challenges the fundamental notion that democratically developed laws should, as Socrates set out, be deeply respected.

Some of the most powerful people are using their power to chip away at the foundations of a political system designed to elevate the needs of the state over those of a few individuals.

And that’s something all of us, not just voters in Michigan and Wisconsin, should be worried about. Some are asking ‘‘Can the damage to America’s political foundations ever fully recover?’’

Last week, a federal judge rebuked the White House in its claim that Don Mcgahn, former White House counsel, should not have to testify in the impeachment inquiry. In just four words, the judge reminded the White House that no-one in the president’s orbit or even the president himself is above the law. She stated: ‘‘Presidents are not kings.’’