Following three months in which Donald Trump has already crossed a dangerous number of lines, the president broke new ground this week, siccing the Internal Revenue Service on Harvard University, putting the future of the school’s tax-exempt status in doubt.

There was no shortage of questions surrounding such an over-the-top abuse, but among the lines of inquiry was whether this was the first step on a dangerous path or the last step. As Politico reported, the public didn’t have to wait too long for an answer.

President Donald Trump on Thursday ramped up his threats to scrutinize the tax-exempt status of groups and colleges he disagrees with, calling out a prominent organization that’s fighting some of his actions in court. Trump told reporters “we’re looking at” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit watchdog group that has launched litigation against his executive actions and conducted investigations into what it alleges are his conflicts of interest.

At an Oval Office event, a reporter asked the Republican about other tax-exempt organizations and institutions he also hoped to target. A savvy politician might say something like, “I’m well aware of the law and would never abuse my powers this way. If the IRS decides to go after one of my foes, that’s up to the tax agency, but I know better than to directly intervene.”

But Trump didn’t trouble himself with the pretense. It might’ve been in his interests to keep up appearances, but in this instance, he simply didn’t bother. Instead, he effectively accepted the premise of the question and began talking about perceived political enemies who might soon follow Harvard on his list.

For its part, CREW responded to the threat with a written statement that said, “For more than 20 years, CREW has exposed government corruption from politicians of both parties who violate the public trust and has worked to promote an ethical, transparent government. Good governance groups are the heart of a healthy democracy. We will continue to do our work to ensure Americans have an ethical and accountable government.”

Time will tell whether or when the White House follows through on Trump’s apparent intentions, but in the meantime, I continue to believe this deserves to be seen as a genuine and important political scandal.

Indeed, when Richard Nixon tried to sic the IRS on his perceived political opponents, it was seen by members of Congress as an impeachable offense. Indeed, it was literally included in the articles of impeachment.

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A half-century later, the political world is confronting similar circumstances. As a new analysis from The New York Times explained:

In the years after President Richard Nixon enlisted the Internal Revenue Service to investigate his political opponents, Congress passed a series of laws to make sure the agency would focus on collecting taxes and not use its vast powers to carry out political vendettas. But President Trump has moved swiftly to suppress that independence in the first few months of his second term and, tax experts and former agency officials warn, return the I.R.S. to darker days when it was used as a political tool of the president.

The White House is already destabilizing the IRS in a variety of dramatic ways, putting its future in doubt. But trying to use the tax agency as a partisan weapon is illegal, though that doesn’t appear to be stopping the incumbent president.

Before he became vice president, JD Vance told a national television audience, “If the IRS can go after you because of what you think or what you believe or what you do, we’d no longer live in a free country.” Expect to hear that quote quite a bit in the coming weeks and months.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.