title:  Legal Scholars Worried Trump Would Break Laws, Be Worse Than Nixon
text: What happens when conservative lawyers from the Cato Institute, Georgetown University and the Hoover Institution get together?Well, besides their opposition to Obamacare, they all come to the conclusion that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President of the United States, is bad for the law.In a recent article from the New York Times, these lawyers, all politically conservative, lambasted the billionaire mogul for his attacks against the First Amendment, individuals, the separation of powers, and the rule of law all together.In other words, these lawyers, without saying it, contend that Trump would be more crooked, more criminal, and more disastrous than Richard Nixon.Pointing out that his promise to tighten libel laws undermines the First Amendment, and that his proposal to ban Muslims from coming into the U.S. violates the Constitution s guarantees of religious freedom, due process and equal protection, attorney Ilya Sharpiro   who works with the Cato Institute   said plainly,  Who knows what Donald Trump with a pen and phone would do. But it was Volokh Conspiracy (a conservative legal blog) writer and attorney David Post who had the harshest words for Trump. Saying his comments regarding Gonzalo P. Cruiel, the judge presiding over the Trump University case, resembled  authoritarianism,  Post argues that these outbursts disqualified him: This is how authoritarianism starts, with a president who does not respect the judiciary. You can criticize the judicial system, you can criticize individual cases, you can criticize individual judges. But the president has to be clear that the law is the law and that he enforces the law. That is his constitutional obligation. So not only does Trump hate the law, he has vowed to restore Trump University after the judge s decision. This blatant disregard for the rule of law should send chills down every American s spine. If Donald Trump, a now public, political figure and possibly future president, can openly disregard the law, who s to say the average American can t?Randy E. Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown who was the architect behind the first major challenge to Obamacare, feels Trump doesn t know his limits: You would like a president with some idea about constitutional limits on presidential powers, on congressional powers, on federal powers, and I doubt he has any awareness of such limits. Richard Epstein, attorney with the Hoover Institution, was more blunt: I don t think he cares about separation of powers at all   I think Obama s been much worse on that issue [constitutional limits] pretty consistently, and his underlings have been even more so. But I think Trump doesn t even think there s an issue to worry about. He just simply says whatever I want to do I will do. I never thought the day would come when conservative lawyers would view Trump more dangerously than they do President Obama.Maybe Trump really does suck. Perhaps Republicans will begin to see the light when Hillary Clinton thrashes him on the debate stage.Featured image via Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images