Throughout American history, the fear that our leaders may sometimes think themselves above the law has always been evident. The fear is that power brings corruptness. To prevent this, however, the system of checks and balances has been installed into the Constitution. No one branch of government stands above the law in this setup. This point was reasserted in the the Supreme Court case of 1974, United States v. Nixon. This case involved the President of the United States, at that time Richard Nixon, and the people of the United States. The case was based on the infamous Watergate…