If Trump had lived in the early 18th century, however, he might have sought recourse in the libel laws in either circumstance. He could have shut down a critical press, accurate or otherwise. It was before the First Amendment, before even the Revolution, and truth was not a defense.

But then along came John Peter Zenger, a New York newspaperman who published articles critical of the imperious royal governor of New York, William Cosby. Zenger laid the early groundwork for a free press. His tale has remarkable echoes to today — not just because of its First Amendment ties but because it concerned the unfettered powers of a chief executive. Zenger, a young and little-known printer, had been persuaded by the colony’s recently deposed chief justice, Lewis Morris, and Morris’s supporters to found the New-York Weekly Journal, an opposition newspaper specifically designed to bring down their nemesis Cosby. Columns in the Journal argued that no man was above the law and listed among their grievances Cosby’s unpaid debts and misuse of public money, his efforts to control the courts, his proposed border wall and his cast of enablers.

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Americans frustrated in the aftermath of the Mueller report at the failure so far to hold Trump accountable might recognize their feelings in the New-York Weekly Journal of Feb. 17, 1734:

“Is it of no consequence to the Public for any Man to think himself above the Law?” wrote Zenger’s anonymous interlocutor, Publius. “This is a prerogative which the King himself never claims, [for] what is it such a Man may not think safe for him to do?”

Real estate scams, tax dodges and emoluments concern those trying to hold Trump to account, but Cosby’s critics were there first:

“May he not contract just Debts and refuse to pay? May he not take People’s Money, who never designed to give it? May he not employ cunning flattering Parasites, men of no Honesty and desperate fortunes, fit Tools for the worst purposes?”

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“In short, what may not a Man of great Power and little Honesty do, if he be not afraid of being called to an Account?”

Trump’s supporters point to the courts as proof of his achievements. Two justices nominated by Trump sit on the Supreme Court — so far — and more than 100 Trump appointees sit on lower courts. Control of the courts was a particularly sore point for New Yorkers in Cosby’s day because he had replaced the incumbent chief justice, Morris, with his own favorite. Zenger’s Journal admonished:

“The People [are] very sensible of the truth of what King James once said: while I have the making of the Judges as I please, I can make what Laws I please. Under bad princes this has often proved too true,” especially if “the Judges or Officers of their Court support such claim, by refusing the legal means of Compelling.”

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If Trump is obsessed with his border wall and unwilling to listen to alternative plans for border security, so too was Cosby. The governor had proposed defensive fortifications around New York City on which to mount cannon. When Morris, by now a leading member of the New York Assembly, criticized the plan, the governor denounced him. Zenger’s Publius then declared:

“As for what [the Governor] is pleased to say about … Morris’s opposing the Fortifications, I have too much good Manners to say, the Gentleman lies; but I know the thing to be absolutely false. I’ll tell you how he [Morris] has opposed them. He was against building a battery according to the draught laid before the Assembly, because he thought it would not have answered the End, built according to that Plan. And would have cost the Country at least £20,000.”

Instead, when the question of where to locate fortifications was under debate, Morris had “voted to have the town fortified in three or four Places, believing it would be more for its Defence than as it is now intended.”

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“Are such things — if they be true — of no concern to the Public?” demanded Publius. Or must New Yorkers simply “sit quiet under their present misfortunes, and pray to God for better times?”

Finally, Publius’s words have apt lessons for those watching Congress test its Constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities against Trump’s sweeping assertion of executive powers:

“Do you think that the Representatives of the People would have passed over such things without notice? But suppose these things be true, what will the People say of their Representatives?” For the Representatives “know well that if a violent tempered powerful Man should get his little Finger into the smallest hole of the People’s Privileges, he would soon work in both hands so as at last to rend and tear their Privileges to Pieces.”

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