Donald Trump’s refusal to enforce the TikTok ban turns out to be about an issue much bigger than what happens to TikTok. In letters to tech companies, the Trump administration has been claiming that the president has a broad and unilateral power to suspend laws passed by Congress.

The New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the documents, and it reports on the results:

In letters to companies like Apple and Google, Ms. Bondi wrote that Mr. Trump had decided that shutting down TikTok would interfere with his “constitutional duties,” so the law banning the social media app must give way to his “core presidential national security and foreign affairs powers.” …

The executive branch has the power, as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, to choose not to enforce laws in particular instances or to set priorities about what categories of lawbreaking they will prioritize when resources are limited. …

In her letters, Ms. Bondi went far beyond that. Because of Mr. Trump’s order, she said, tech firms that acted contrary to the statute were breaking no law, even in theory, and the department was “irrevocably relinquishing” any legal claims against them—including under future administrations. …

Essentially, legal experts said, Mr. Trump is claiming a constitutional power to immunize private parties to commit otherwise illegal acts with impunity.

Executive Functions provides a thorough analysis of this claim, describing it as an attempt to resurrect the “dispensing power,” the authority to “grant dispensations that prospectively excuse legal violations” that was once claimed by kings but has long been declared anathema to the American political system.