Of course it is. And we can tell because we can quote the rulebook that very very plainly and simply states that the executive power is vested in the president.
It is simple for a very very good reason, because that allows for accountability that is so important, which is exactly why it is made so simple.
You bring up power but you get it exactly backwards: It is because we need to fight against power that it is made so simple, so that there isn’t room for complication through which an authoritarian would try to escape the checks on power.
It is BECAUSE we need to restrain power that it is made simple that the executive power is in the hands of the president who stands to be impeached the moment the executive branch does wrong.
No complication. No room for the president to claim innocence or ignorance or independence. It is his responsibility to obey the law, and if he doesn’t, boom, he’s out.
To make up this idea of an independent agency is to relieve the president of accountability, it is to promote exactly the authoritarianism that it sounds like you and I are both worried about.
It is exactly why it is simple, and exactly why we need to emphasize that simplicity, that is core to the design of the US government
The president must be held accountable for his branch of government, including the DOJ. That is how the US government is designed, simply and unquestionably, to avoid the chaos of an unaccountable department.
