The SCOTUS Ruling Protects Future Criminal Presidents
Plus: How Much Would You Gamble on a Biden Comeback?
Recently in The Bulwark:
BILL KRISTOL & ANDREW EGGER: SCOTUS Burns Down Another Guardrail
JVL: The Trump-SCOTUS Doom Loop š
JOE PERTICONE: Bidenās Dam is Starting to Break
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DENNIS AFTERGUT AND PHILIP ALLEN LACOVARA: In Granting Huge Win to Trump, Supreme Court Protects Future Criminal Presidents
AND NOW THE DEED IS DONE. The Supreme Court has put a torch to the first principle of constitutionalismāthat no person, no matter how powerful, is above the law. Mondayās ruling in Trump v. United States holds that so long as presidents operate within their ācoreā responsibilities, and often when they are at the outer edge of their duties, they are immune from prosecution.
In the short term, it is the death-knell for any trial of former President Donald Trump on January 6th-related charges before the presidential election. Special Counsel Jack Smith may still be able to proceed with a slimmed-down trial of the sort that he laid out in his brief to the Supreme Court, but not in time for voters to hear before Election Day whether a jury has found Trump guilty of trying to illegally overthrow the 2020 election.
š„ PODCASTS AND VIDEOS š§
Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Ben Wittes and Steven Shepard: He Is Still a Criminal
Just Between Us: Wretched Week š
Across the Movie Aisle: Kevin Costner Goes to the 'Horizon'
George Conway Explains it All (to Sarah Longwell): Trump Canāt Escape Prosecution Despite Supreme Court Ruling
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A.B. STODDARD: A Plea to Jill Biden: Reckon with Reality
BACKSTAGE THURSDAY NIGHT, Jill Biden watched the pain in her husbandās face as he debated for the first time in four yearsāstruggling for words, mouth hanging open, eyes squinting, voice failing.
Then the first lady soldiered forward, accompanying the president to Waffle House in Atlanta, and then a debate āwatch partyā where she praised her husbandās performance and attempted to shift the focus to Donald Trump. āHe LIED!!!ā she screamed into the microphone.
MONA CHAREN: How Much Would You Gamble on a Biden Comeback?
ONE OF THE SADDEST FABLES people comforted themselves with over the past eight years was the one about the strength of American institutions: The voters could elevate an unfit, malevolent demagogue, but our checks and balances were robust; our institutions would prevent any serious damage.
Over the course of these years, one institution after another has demonstrated the oppositeāthat they are not bulwarks, merely facades.
šØOVERTIMEšØ
Sad Tuesday, everyone: Post Pub, a Washington watering hole that was a regular haunt for me and Andrew Egger in the early days of The Bulwark, has closed. Again. When it became a victim to COVID, I wrote an obit for it at Washingtonian. A restaurateur tried to bring it back, and failed.
A friend and former colleague alerted me to a missing plaque, I texted my pal Andrewā¦ and Iāll let Andrew Beaujon tell the rest of the story:
But staffers at other publications did spend time at Post Pub. One was the Weekly Standard, which is where Anna Kriebel comes into the Post Pub story. A summer intern at the Dispatch, Kriebel knew that some of her coworkers are veterans of the Standard, which ceased publication in late 2018. She passed by Post Pub on her way into the office every day and remembers thinking that it looked like an āold-timey, chain-smoking, hardscrabble, old-school journalist watering holeā and that she and other Dispatch interns should organize a happy hour there sometime.
But on Monday, she says, she walked by the bar and saw a plaque that denoted one booth as a hangout for Standard employees on the ground. āWhat the heck,ā she says she thought, āIāll pick it up and take it in with me.ā She brought it into work in case anyone might want it. After she posted a photo of the plaque in Slack, she says many āopen-mouth emojiā followed.
Post Pub will be missed. And thanks to Anna Kriebel for rescuing our old plaque. SlĆ inte Mhaith!
Some happy newsā¦ Rudy Giuliani has been disbarred (Law.com).
Tired: Allegedly eating dogsā¦
Wired: Taking pictures of allegedly eating a dogā¦ This Vanity Fair can-o-beans on RFK, Jr. is just bonkers.
Missouri presidential delegates rejectedā¦ by Republican National Convention committee (Missouri Independent).
Have you seen the term ābedwettingā being bandied about? A bit about the popularization of the political use of the term.
David Brooksās Unsettling Interviewā¦ With Steve Bannon (NYT).
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