From TPM Reader JG …

Saw the front page NYT on the Dems “strong bench” that all took a pass on 2024 to avoid (as I would put it) Carter-Kennedy and “now we are stuck with Biden.”   So let’s pivot to something constructive: let’s have that strong bench out there from now through November supporting a national campaign (and candidacy) based on preserving and extending reproductive freedom, protecting democracy (keeping a power-tripping maniac from the presidency), and celebrating economic stability and even prosperity.  In other words, start the 2028 election cycle now: let Harris, Newsom, Pritzker, Whitmer, Beshear [Klobuchar, Warnock, Shapiro, Cooper?] start campaigning nationally.  It’s not just a President we are selecting but a set of beliefs about America.  Lots of would-be leaders need to be out there making the case.  (I don’t mean to exclude Obama; his role is assumed, but he shouldn’t be the only other voice.

This is so precisely right it’s not even funny.

A TPM Reader wrote in this morning asking if it’s just grasping at straws to make a big push to put not just yesterday’s ruling but the Court itself at the center of the campaign. Is trying to change the subject in that way crazy? What I said was, not at all. Obviously, wanting to focus attention on something doesn’t mean you’ll succeed. And for those ready to pounce: No, this is irrespective of who is at the top of the Democratic ticket. The obvious fact is that any day Democrats are talking about Joe Biden’s age is a wasted, lost day. What’s more relevant is that this is not and would not be changing the subject. It is the subject. It’s the actual subject that the campaign and election are about.

If the Roberts’ Court is right about the Constitution, it’s hard to imagine what the authors of the Constitution had in mind when they proposed that a President could be guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Yes, that is in a non-criminal context wherein criminal penalties aren’t possible. But they clearly meant this to be inclusive of official acts. Indeed, it almost certainly is primarily about official acts. Yes, you can kind of thread a needle to maybe work your way out of this contradiction. But you don’t need much of an acquaintance with the period in which the Constitution was written to know that the people of the time would have found this decision shocking. The mere words of the impeachment clause itself tell you that.

One of the many things we have going for us at TPM is that we have two really talented reporters covering different aspects of the world of the law and the courts and we have an executive editor who is himself a lawyer, which adds an additional layer of sophistication. I’ll leave the details of the Court’s decision to them. But I can speak broadly to the nature of president power. This decision creates two classes of presidential immunity for official acts, one absolute, the second presumptive. This is much closer to total immunity than many seem to understand. It is precisely the President’s official actions, actions taken with official powers, that we’re most concerned about. We’re not worried that the President will steal a toaster. If a President beats their spouse that is an outrage and he or she should be held accountable to the full extent of the law. But that doesn’t threaten the state itself. It is precisely official acts which matter most with a President and where legal accountability is necessary because the Constitution gives Presidents such vast powers and their conferral is personal and will-based in nature.