I am fairly sure it would be a crime for the President to pull up someone's VA health records on a whim, or at least it would be a crime for anyone at the VA to facilitate him doing that.

We can also add to that IRS data. The articles of impeachment against Nixon included the following:

"He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law" (emphasis mine).

There actually are laws regulating the handling of personal data collected by the government and it generally doesn't have a "the president wants to see it" exception.

"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal" - Nixon

I wonder, if he was alive today would he stand by those words?

I would agree with that emphasis. Misusing presidential privilege is always a possible impeachment, if congress cares.

I think that he can access a health or irs record for cause - anything which would not get him impeached.

> What data in a federal agency could the chief executive not have authorization to access?

Personally? For starters, he can't access anything the Legislature's laws say he can't.

The Executive is there to implement the law, and that includes obeying them him/her-self.

A President telling other people to break the law on his behalf by threatening to fire them is also a crime of extortion.

> he can't access anything the Legislature's laws say he can't.

Can the legislature make rules for the president without constitutional amendment?

I am interested- I’ll see if I can find examples.

Well, if the legislature truly cannot make any statue affecting the President, that has some terrifying implications.

It would mean a President is is legally permitted to ignore laws against raping a child on the sidewalk outside 1600 Pennsylvania avenue Ave then murdering all of Congress by blowing up the Capitol.

Recently, a majority on the Supreme Court has claimed there's immunity for "Official Acts", but hasn't laid out any rule for when an official-looking act is actually an unofficial one... They're basically reserving the right to decide later. (Ex: Officially ordering the US military to kill Congress and Supreme Court Justices.)

Not that I want to give the current one any more evil ideas.

> cannot make any statue affecting the President,

I didn’t say affecting - I said limiting the power of.

A regulatory procedure the president is asked to follow is different than saying “we made this information off limits”.

> President is is legally permitted to ignore laws against raping

That’s been beat to death. He would face impeachment + removal from office.

> That’s been beat to death. He would face impeachment + removal from office.

Republicans didn't object to Trump's coup attempt, fraud convictions, past attempted rapes, or proven corruption. 70% of them believe that he won the 2020 election. There's no reason to believe that they'd impeach him for child rape unless she was the daughter of a prominent Republican. Trump would have the girl killed, send her parents to a gulag in El Salvador, and Fox News would call it fake news.

> past attempted rapes

You are spreading misinformation.

How?

It's certainly possible that none of the numerous allegations or proven cases of sexual assault (https://19thnews.org/2023/10/donald-trump-associates-sexual-...) were rape attempts, but that's at best an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence.

There was a 5 minute period after that ruling was published that I really hoped Joe would take the ruling to its logical conclusion, much as you did.

war powers resolution

Also, it's a federal crime for the president to direct the IRS to audit someone: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/7217

I think the question is whether employees of an advisory group that is not an actual department of the government are on the list of people to whom can he authorize access to this type of sensitive data.