Do US laws apply to US presidents? Supreme Court to decide.

In a way, the U.S. Supreme Court is due.

In the 1974 case U.S. v. Nixon, the court decided unanimously that President Richard Nixon couldn’t block the release of the Watergate tapes to investigators. Twenty-three years later, it ruled unanimously that President Bill Clinton wasn’t immune from a civil lawsuit because of his office.

On Tuesday, another 23 years later, the high court will again examine one of the toughest, but most fundamental, questions the nation’s highest court can hear: Do the laws that apply to everyone else also apply to the president?

They are questions that implicate the Supreme Court itself, and the balance of American democracy writ large. At a time when the court has grown increasingly deferential to the executive branch, and when this court in particular has a track record of siding with President

A political question?Presidential immunityStriking a balance