Quick take: Current presidents, ex-presidents, executive privilege and "the unitary executive"

 I have a simple observation, and while I recognize the absurdity of noting hypocrisy in the modern political world, this point seems relevant.  "The unitary executive."  Do you remember this notion?  It is a conception of executive authority which holds that the power of the executive branch is vested solely in the president.  It is actually an expansive conception of presidential power, used to advance extreme doctrines under the George W. Bush administration, and then again under the Trump administration.  Go read a bunch of stuff by John Yoo, for example.  The important point, though, is that it is a scholarly model used to claim expansive executive power, including by Trump.  OK, let's apply unitary executive to executive privilege.  All power is vested solely in the president.  Ex-presidents can suck it.  Why?  Unitary.  One.  That one is the one that the ex-president can suck.  If you apply the theory of the unitary executive to executive privilege, ex-presidents would have zero claim to executive privilege, and every single person who ever argued unitary executive would have to, well, suck it.  And Trump relied heavily on unitary executive.  So, you know...

Watch vice pay its tribute to virtue.  With Trump, it's a dine-and-dash, though.