This is a moment of real peril for the polity. In well constructed constitutions the executive is designed to be the institution capable of contending with emergencies. But what if the executive, the president, is the emergency. How can we meet the emergency now?

I answer this question in a piece I published late last night at The Bulwark. Please read, discuss and circulate. Relevant to our current conversation here on The Constitutionalist is the need for Congressional and Cabinet suppleness, nuance, and creativity in mustering the resources of the Constitution to meet the moment. The 25th Amendment is one way to do that, an alterntive interpretation to Ben Kleinerman’s cramped originalist reading.

Impeachment is also necessary to underscore the illegality of a self-pardon. I make this point in an interview yesterday afternoon and building off of my article with Corey Brettschneider in The Atlantic.

The Bulwark piece has been updated on January 12 and republished at LSE.