I think this is, in large part, one of the reasons many of these authoritarian types get out of control.
On some level they know whether or not they consider their actions to be illegal that other people will. At some point they anticipate blowback and a lot of their flailing overreach stems directly from trying to get out ahead of any consequences that may come their way.
Unfortunately the people making that call are largely people that are on that list or closely connected to people that are.