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This just gives the administrative state unlimited power over politicians. Which, to be fair, is basically already the case. Already we see that people in bureaucracy are not held to the same standard. For instance, even though it is technically a crime to make a material lie to any government official, the FBI can lie to other government officials they are investigating and never be charged for it, while the FBI can set perjury traps for other government officials and go after them. The FBI routinely uses tactics that for any other person be obstruction of justice, and never gets charged for it. Etc. etc.
Yes, this is on purpose. It's part of the mechanism by which I would actually curtail the administrative state's power: I want the administrative state to be forced to be hostile to legislators so that legislators take the power creep of the administrative state seriously and write laws that restrict the discretion the administrative state has.
How long would it remain a crime if legislators were maximally subject to it? Legislators have the power to make it not a crime. Or to significantly limit or clarify when and to whom lying is a crime. They just never bothered making it not a crime because they know that unless they find themselves significantly out of favor with the administrative state, everyone with some discretion with regards to enforcing this is gonna ignore it or refuse to prosecute it. But if the opposite political party could, for instance, sue the FBI (or even better; make the individuals in the administrative state personally liable) for not prosecuting crimes of the their opponents, then the law would be fixed in a hurry.
Right now, legislators write laws with significant vagueness, so broad as to make everyone technically commit crimes, safe in the knowledge that the heads of the administrative state are in their peer group and would not weaponise these against them, barring extreme situations (like that one businessman-politician we all know about). And for the most part, they wouldn't even weaponise them against the majority of the population, they're content to keep these laws in their back pocket to use if they need to take someone out. But the average citizen is not in the peer group of the legislators and the heads of the administrative state, all they know is that there are dozens of crimes a hostile state could find them guilty of if it wanted to. They might not mind if the state feels friendly, but increasingly people on all sides except the elites are finding the state to be apathetic or outright hostile to them. Making legislators feel this hostility is the best way I can think of to incentivize them to restrict the power of the administrative state.
Note that I'm also thinking that a "Higher Standard" law, if it turns out to work with legislators, could also easily be applied to the upper echelons of the administrative state and the judiciary: judges, prosecutors, etc... Any one who's got any power to wield the state's power against the population and whose power is based on significant amounts of discretion. Break up the professional courtesy that they have between them that the population at large doesn't get to enjoy; the administrative state being friendly towards itself is not compatible with democratic principles, it's a form of corruption.
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