Would President Frank Underwood’s Plan Be Legal?

SPOILER ALERT

If you’re watching the new season of “House of Cards,” you may wonder whether the trick now-President Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) to create jobs and boost the economy has up his sleeve would be allowed in real-life politics. Business Insider consulted an expert, Harvard Law School professor and Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe. The answer? Well….maybe.

“If the deed is done before the courts can get around to ordering the hypothetical President Underwood to cease and desist and put the money back in the federal piggy bank, then any lawsuit over the matter … would become technically moot,” Tribe says. “In practical political terms, if the President’s violation of the Constitution is sufficiently popular, the prospects of impeachment and conviction are obviously slim to none.”