Paul is right that law enforcement and intelligence agencies use polygraphs to personnel decisions. Outside that realm, however, they are viewed with profound suspicion. Judges, worried that juries will be tempted to cede their constitutional guilt-determining obligations to something that borders on pseudoscience, are very reluctant to allow results to be admitted as evidence in court. "There is simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable," Justice Thomas wrote in a 1998 Supreme Court opinion, citing to studies that analogized the method's accuracy to that of a coin toss.

Federal law sharply limits the circumstances in which private employers may require employees to undergo such tests. (Government agencies, as you might guess, are exempt.) Some state legislatures have imposed even more onerous restrictions on their use. Relying on this procedure to find out who wrote the op-ed is about two steps above Trump consulting a Ouija board, and 10,000 steps below him being a chief executive who is capable of earning his subordinates' respect by any means other than fear, compulsion, or their own cowardice.

Polygraphs also have an ignominious history within presidential administrations. Jeff Sessions floated the idea a year ago to flush out Trump's dreaded "leakers." In 1985, President Reagan pondered a vaguely Orwellian policy that would have forced as many as 180,000 federal employees to submit to testing. He scaled it back after his secretary of state, George Schultz, declared that he'd resign before he acquiesced. Richard Nixon once considered requiring exams of the roughly 300,000 people who held security clearances at the time. ("I don't know anything about polygraphs, and I don't know how accurate they are, but I know they'll scare the hell out of people," he said, charming as ever.) A helpful rule of thumb for presidents is that "your impeached predecessor who resigned in disgrace to avoid conviction by the Senate" is not a guy to whom you want your ideas compared, ever.

Overlaying the the already-flawed polygraph process with Donald Trump's baseline insecurities is one of the few ways in which reliance on lie detector tests could be any more ill-advised. If he doesn't understand that results are fallible—a good bet, given his track record with understanding things!—he could declare the wrong person responsible, or allow the right person to evade further suspicion. If, as is often the case, both individual and collective results prove unhelpful—what happens if he tests 50 people, and 35 pass, 10 fail, and five are inconclusive?—it would only exacerbate his levels of anger and paranoia, which are already, I submit, high enough. Besides, polygraph machines are expensive, and any model that comes within 200 feet of this White House is liable to melt in dramatic fashion, its feeble circuitry overwhelmed by the thick fog of dishonesty that hovers over the grounds on a quasi-permanent basis. Your tax dollars are better spent on something else.