We have a possible winner for worst moderation label of all time.

It's going to happen!

I think a fairly orthodox and necessarily general answer to this question would be probably no as to the President and his aides but probably yes as to EB agencies, esp. if done via appropriations and not a gag on particular officials. YMMV as to what SCOTUS would say.

I now hear "Chadha" in Kirk's "Khan" voice.

Yes, and not applying principles or assessing empirical facts consistently is evidence of bad faith, motivated reasoning, or incompetence. Consistency has special value in law, though--it's its raison d'etre--so it's an especially damning charge in that domain.

I think that's true of judge-made law as well, which not everyone agrees with.

Sure, as is also true of various other kinds of political claims. At least that's my view.

I take "law is a form of politics" to be a recognition that the law is shaped by who creates it and what their world view is, and endorsing the claim is to say there's nothing, per se, wrong with that. Rejecting the claim affects the normative criteria through which you judge legal outcomes.

On a side note, the interview itself is astonishing for someone going to trial in a few weeks. It is itself an example of the gambler's personality of the person profiled.

IMO Thomas is more polite by a large margin, for what it's worth (which is, of course, nothing).