Former President Richard Nixon: Former Citizen Of The United States

Former President Richard Nixon is saying in his response to the interviewer, that a president approves of situations thinking he is does what is best for the people of the United States. The president also expects the people to carry out the situation by obeying all laws. Otherwise, the president is asking citizens to break laws and puts the people in charge of these tasks in an impossible position. The Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, says the United States does not torture and only does what is right for it’s people. Rice goes on to say if any citizen had authority at the time of September 11th, they would have done anything in their power to make the United States safe. This seems to be implying that it would have been okay if the president broke laws in this situation.
The president is still a citizen of the United States; therefore laws apply to the president too. I do believe the president should have some power to ensure the safety of the people by possibly breaking laws, but this power could easily be abused. Like Richard Nixon, he did not have this power and still abused it. Also, the legislative and judicial branches do not have the power to make these decisions and nobody is considering allowing this. But, the constitution says all branches are equal in power and no branch should have complete control over something. How would the legislative and judicial branch check this power and how would they stop the president form abusing this power? If the country allows the president to break laws now, then eventually the country will allow the president to do something else and eventually the president will gain too much