serious separation-of-powers issue. b. The Effect of Obstruction-of-Justice Statutes on the President’s Capacity to Perform His Article II Responsibilities is Limited Under the Supreme Court’s balancing test for analyzing separation-of- powers issues, the first task is to assess the degree to which applying obstruction-of-justice statutes to presidential actions affects the President’s ability to carry out his Article II responsibilities. Administrator of General Services, 433 U.S. at 443. As discussed above, applying obstruction-of-justice statutes to presidential conduct that does not involve the President’s conduct of office—such as influencing the testimony of witnesses—is constitutionally unproblematic. The President has no more right than other citizens to impede official proceedings by corruptly influencing witness testimony. The conduct would be equally improper whether effectuated through direct efforts to produce false testimony or suppress the truth, or through the actual, threatened, or promised use of official powers to achieve the same result. The President’s action in curtailing criminal investigations or prosecutions, or discharging law enforcement officials, raises different questions. Each type of action involves the exercise of executive discretion in furtherance of the President’s duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” U.S. CONST., ART. II, § 3. Congress may not supplant the President’s exercise of executive power to supervise prosecutions or to remove officers who occupy law enforcement positions. See Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 726-727 (1986) (“Congress cannot reserve for itself the power of removal of an officer charged with the execution of the laws except by impeachment. . . . [Because t]he structure of the Constitution does not permit Congress to execute the laws, . . . [t]his kind of congressional control over the execution of the laws . . . is constitutionally impermissible.”). Yet the obstruction-of-justice statutes do not aggrandize power in Congress or usurp executive authority. Instead, they impose a discrete limitation on conduct only when it is taken with the “corrupt” intent to obstruct justice. The obstruction statutes thus would restrict presidential action only by prohibiting the President from acting to obstruct official proceedings for the improper purpose of protecting his own interests. See Volume II, Section III.A.3, supra. The direct effect on the President’s freedom of action would