California Gov. Gavin Newsom is headed to New Hampshire to headline a Democrat campaign event just days after the Biden-Trump presidential debate, fueling more speculation that he may be preparing to step in if Biden backs out of the 2024 race. 

The July 8 event, called the ‘Blue Summer Campaign Kick-Off,’ is being spearheaded by the New Hampshire House and Senate Democrats.

New Hampshire is a key swing state in the general election and Newsom, who is a top surrogate for President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign, will also be campaigning for the president and other Democrats up and down the ticket during his stop in the Granite State, according to sources familiar with his plans.

‘We look forward to welcoming Governor Newsom to New Hampshire to campaign on behalf of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as we work to once again defeat Donald Trump,’ longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley said in a statement.

Arguing that ‘Trump has grown increasingly unhinged in his campaign for power,’ Buckley emphasized that ‘it’s never been more important to mobilize Democrats across the state to defeat him and re-elect our President, Joe Biden, who has consistently fought for and delivered for New Hampshire.’

Newsom assured reporters in the spin room after Thursday night’s presidential debate that he remained firmly behind Biden — who has faced significant criticism even from members of his own party for a lackluster performance.

‘I will never turn my back on President Biden,’ Newsom said on Thursday in a comment that appeared designed to dispel rumors that he’s running a shadow campaign. ‘I don’t know a Democrat in my party that would do so. And especially after tonight, we have his back.’

Newsom added: ‘I spent a lot of time with him. I know Joe Biden. I know what he’s accomplished in the last three and a half years. I know what he’s capable of. And I have no trepidations.’

Leading up to the debate, rumors continued to swirl that Newsom, a possible future contender for his party’s presidential nomination, had been tapped as a Biden surrogate leading up to the November presidential election.

When pressed if he was ‘ready to take on Donald Trump’ – a question that hinted at the rumors that he could be a potential replacement for Biden – Newsom again denied any ulterior motives.

Last year, Biden told a group of world leaders that Newsom ‘could have the job I’m looking for’ if he wanted it, a joking reference that nevertheless alluded to Biden’s diminished approval rating and the rising discontent within his party.

‘I want to talk about Governor Newsom. I want to thank him. He’s been one hell of a governor, man,’ Biden said during a welcome reception for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders in San Francisco. ‘Matter of fact, he could be anything he wants. He could have the job I’m looking for.’

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., also accused Newsom of running a shadow campaign for the presidency last year, roughly around the same time that Newsom engaged in a debate with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that was hosted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity. 

‘Let me say something that might be uncomfortable,’ Fetterman said at a Democratic Party dinner in Iowa. ‘Right now there are two additional Democrats running for Pennsylvania, excuse me, running for president right now. One, one is a congressman from Minnesota. The other one is the governor of California. They’re both running for president, but only one had the guts to announce it.’

Biden has given no indication that he plans to drop out of the race. 

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser, Stepheny Price, Aubrie Spady and Cameron Cawthorne contributed to this report.

In their dissents from the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, the court’s liberal justices suggested that the majority opinion allows for a slew of alarming scenarios — including a president ordering a Navy SEAL team to ‘assassinate’ his political rival or even poisoning one of his own cabinet members.

The high court on Monday ruled 6-3 that a president has substantial immunity for official acts that occurred during his time in office. It’s a decision that has significant implications for former President Trump, whose prosecution on charges related to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach and alleged 2020 election interference spurred the Supreme Court to hear the case. 

But although the majority opinion from Chief Justice John Roberts explicitly stated that the president ‘is not above the law’ and immunity is only a factor when it involves an ‘official act’ — the justices sent the case back to lower courts to determine if the acts at the center of Trump’s case were ‘official’ — the ruling raised a series of frightening possibilities, according to the trio of dissenting justices.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan wrote in the primary dissent that the court’s majority opinion ‘makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.’ 

‘The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution,’ Sotomayor wrote. ‘Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.’

She continued: ‘Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.’

Sotomayor added that the majority decision has ‘shifted irrevocably’ the relationship between the president and the American people, being that ‘in every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.’

Yet another startling scenario is included in a footnote from a separate dissent authored by Jackson.

Noting that the president’s removal of a cabinet member would constitute an official act, Jackson says that ‘while the President may have the authority to decide to remove the Attorney General, for example, the question here is whether the President has the option to remove the Attorney General by, say, poisoning him to death.’

She adds: ‘Put another way, the issue here is not whether the President has exclusive removal power, but whether a generally applicable criminal law prohibiting murder can restrict how the President exercises that authority.’

Sotomayor’s conclusion summed up the prevailing tenor of her and Jackson’s writings: ‘With fear for our democracy, I dissent.’

Both dissents were taken to task in the court’s majority opinion.

‘As for the dissents, they strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today…,’ Roberts wrote.

He added: ‘Coming up short on reasoning, the dissents repeatedly level variations of the accusation that the Court has rendered the President ‘above the law.’’

Adding that the dissents came ‘up short on reasoning,’ Roberts wrote that the ‘positions in the end boil down to ignoring the Constitution’s separation of powers and the Court’s precedent and instead fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals about a future where the President ‘feels empowered to violate federal criminal law.”

Sotomayor’s dissent swiftly reverberated throughout social media. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 election, posted on X that she agrees with Sotomayor’s stand against the ‘MAGA wing’ of the high court. 

‘It will be up to the American people this November to hold Donald Trump accountable,’ Clinton wrote.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., is now threatening to force a vote on a measure to impose a $10,000 per day fine on Attorney General Merrick Garland for every day he does not turn over audio tapes of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s interview with President Biden.

Luna said she would force a vote on her inherent contempt resolution against Garland on Friday, but a source familiar with the matter said she agreed to delay that move after a conversation with Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. Luna later confirmed on X, formerly Twitter, that she intends to call up that vote next week.

Inherent contempt is a rarely-used congressional maneuver that would effectively allow the House to try and convict Garland.

She filed a new resolution to both hold Garland in inherent contempt and fine him for the tapes on Friday, and is expected to declare the measure ‘privileged’ when the House is back in session on July 8. 

Deeming a resolution ‘privileged’ forces the House to take it up within two legislative days.

Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson’s office for further comment.

While Luna had been prepping her inherent contempt resolution for some time, the added threat of fines comes after Biden’s disastrous debate performance against former President Trump on CNN last Thursday.

The 81-year-old president spoke with a hoarse voice, reportedly due to a cold, and stumbled over his own answers several times during the primetime event. Viewers also observed him appearing tired and noticeably less sharp than he looked the last time he faced Trump in 2020.

It’s prompted new pushback from Republicans and even fear among some Democrats that Biden may not be fit for another four years in the White House.

House Republicans, some of whom long held that Biden is not mentally fit for office, voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress last month for his refusal to turn over audio tapes of Hur’s interview with Biden on his handling of classified documents. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has refused to prosecute, citing Biden’s decision to call executive privilege over the tapes.

Biden’s counter is that the full transcript is already available – he has bashed the GOP effort as nakedly partisan.

But Republicans argue that the tapes would provide necessary context about Biden’s mental acuity that could not be gleaned from the transcript.

The House GOP also sued Garland on Monday in order to obtain the tapes, with the lawsuit being led by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

Fox News Digital was first to report that Luna informed colleagues last week that she intends to force a vote on holding Garland in inherent contempt. 

The little-known maneuver, not used since the 1930s, would direct the House sergeant-at-arms to detain Garland for a House-led trial. It’s never been invoked on a Cabinet official, but the Supreme Court upheld Congress’ ability to use it in 1935.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., threatened to bring articles of impeachment against the Supreme Court after Monday’s immunity ruling regarding former President Trump. 

‘The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control,’ Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X. ‘Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture. I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return.’ 

The ruling in question said a president has absolute immunity from prosecution for ‘actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,’ and ‘presumptive immunity’ for official acts in general. The court said there is no immunity for unofficial acts.

Fox News Digital reached out to Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional office seeking clarification on who in particular she intends to impeach, but did not immediately hear back. 

Ocasio-Cortez was not the only congressional Democrat to blast the Supreme Court’s ruling.

In a statement, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., vowed that ‘House Democrats will engage in aggressive oversight and legislative activity with respect to the Supreme Court to ensure that the extreme, far-right justices in the majority are brought into compliance with the Constitution.’ 

‘Today’s Supreme Court decision to grant legal immunity to a former President for crimes committed using his official power sets a dangerous precedent for the future of our nation,’ Jeffries said. 
 

‘This is a sad day for America and a sad day for our democracy,’ Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote on X. ‘The very basis of our judicial system is that no one is above the law. Treason or incitement of an insurrection should not be considered a core constitutional power afforded to a president.’ 

The court’s ruling did not say whether any of Trump’s alleged actions fell under his constitutional powers, leaving such matters to be sorted out by a lower court.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

In the Supreme Court’s monumental decision in former President Trump’s immunity case, one justice questioned whether Special Counsel Jack Smith – at the helm of Trump’s unprecedented prosecution – was constitutionally appointed. 

On Monday, a 6-3 majority ruled that a president has substantial immunity for official acts in office, and sent the case back down to lower courts to determine which acts at the center of Trump’s case were official. 

‘The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive,’ the opinion said. 

In a separate concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas looked to ‘highlight another way in which this prosecution may violate our constitutional structure’ – the appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel. 

‘In this case, there has been much discussion about ensuring that a President ‘is not above the law.’ But, as the Court explains, the President’s immunity from prosecution for his official acts is the law. The Constitution provides for ‘an energetic executive,’ because such an Executive is ‘essential to… the security of liberty,” Thomas wrote. 

‘Respecting the protections that the Constitution provides for the Office of the Presidency secures liberty. In that same vein, the Constitution also secures liberty by separating the powers to create and fill offices. And, there are serious questions whether the Attorney General has violated that structure by creating an office of the Special Counsel that has not been established by law,’ Thomas said, adding that ‘[t]hose questions must be answered before this prosecution can proceed.’

Thomas explained that in this case, the attorney general ‘purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States.’ 

‘But, I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been ‘established by Law,’ as the Constitution requires. By requiring that Congress create federal offices ‘by Law,’ the Constitution imposes an important check against the President – he cannot create offices at his pleasure,’ he said. 

‘If there is no law establishing the office that the Special Counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution.’ he said. 

Thomas added that ‘a private citizen cannot criminally prosecute anyone, let alone a former President.’

Thomas noted that ‘[n]o former President has faced criminal prosecution for his acts while in office in the more than 200 years since the founding of our country. And, that is so despite numerous past Presidents taking actions that many would argue constitute crimes. If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people.’ 

The question of what immunity should be granted to Trump and future presidents stemmed from Smith’s federal election interference case in which he charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. 

Those charges were the result of Smith’s months-long investigation into whether Trump was involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and any alleged interference in the 2020 election results. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and argued he should be immune from prosecution from official acts done as president.

In an amicus brief filed in the case before the high court, Ed Meese, attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, argued that the court should reject Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request because he was unconstitutionally appointed in the first place. 

‘Not clothed in the authority of the federal government, Smith is a modern example of the naked emperor,’ the brief stated. 

‘Improperly appointed, he has no more authority to represent the United States in this Court than Bryce Harper, Taylor Swift, or Jeff Bezos,’ he argued. 

Merrick Garland cited statutory authority for Smith’s appointment, none of which Meese argued ‘remotely authorized the appointment by the Attorney General of a private citizen to receive extraordinary criminal law enforcement power under the title of Special Counsel.’

Thomas acknowledged that argument in his concurrence, saying, ‘It is difficult to see how the Special Counsel has an office ‘established by Law,’ as required by the Constitution. When the Attorney General appointed the Special Counsel, he did not identify any statute that clearly creates such an office.’

Meese also argued that ‘even if one overlooks the absence of statutory authority for the position, there is no statute specifically authorizing the Attorney General, rather than the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint such a Special Counsel.’

‘Under the Appointments Clause, inferior officers can be appointed by department heads only if Congress so directs by statute… and so directs specifically enough to overcome a clear-statement presumption in favor of presidential appointment and senatorial confirmation. No such statute exists for the Special Counsel,’ he added.

Thomas on Friday argued similarly. 

‘Even if the Special Counsel has a valid office, questions remain as to whether the Attorney General filled that office in compliance with the Appointments Clause,’ he said. 

‘For example, it must be determined whether the Special Counsel is a principal or inferior officer. If the former, his appointment is invalid because the Special Counsel was not nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, as principal officers must be,’ he said.

‘Those questions must be answered before this prosecution can proceed,’ he added.

‘We must respect the Constitution’s separation of powers in all its forms, else we risk rendering its protection of liberty a parchment guarantee,’ he concluded.