Unlawful power is real and must be reckoned with.

Evidence

Even unlawful power is power – and, in fact, in a different sense to the one in which untruth is truth. It is real power which must always be taken into account by the lawful power-holder, and not simply a possibility, whose arrival one can await with curiosity and an interest to learn, while possessing the possibility of negating it. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 664