Nixon’s Law
When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.
Source: Richard M. Nixon in David Frost, I Gave Them a Sword 1978
This was Mr. Nixon’s reply to a question by Mr. Frost about the president’s approval, in 1970, of a plan for domestic spying. The plan, authored by an aid Tom Charles Huston, entailed such criminal activities as break-ins, wiretaps and secret opening of mail. It never went into effect thanks to the objections of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover who feared the bureau would get a black eye if one of his agents were nabbed in one of these operations. Subsequently, the White House went ahead on its own, creating a special unit to conduct criminal operations - the so-called ‘plumbers’ (their first mission was to stop leaks), thus setting in motion the train of events that led to the Watergate break-in and in due course to Mr. Nixon’s resignation.
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