As right-wing courtiers go, John Yoo is no small bean. A prolific scholar and professor at Berkeley Law, Yoo has championed a vision of presidential power resembling that of a Hanoverian king. He was also a Justice Department lawyer in the Bush administration, producing such choice gems as a defense of warrantless wiretaps and a greenlight for the US program of state-sponsored torture.

Not exactly the kind of guy you would expect to complain about abuse of executive authority. So when the New York Times published a column by Yoo expressing “grave concerns about Mr. Trump’s uses of presidential power,” it was rather rich.

For the past several months, many legal commentators have added to the litany of slamming President Trump as a threat to the rule of law. But two things stand out in Professor Yoo’s contribution. For one, nearly half of the op-ed is spent defending the expansive, unitary executive Yoo made a career promoting — a “robust vision of the presidency” which, he admits, “supports some of Mr. Trump’s early executive acts.”