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Page Number: 16.0

8 

TRUMP v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

(1872).  But in 1870, Congress enacted a provision that pro-
hibited using the President’s pardon as evidence of restora-
tion  of  property  rights.    Id.,  at  143–144.  Chief  Justice 
Chase  held  the  provision  unconstitutional  because  it  “im-
pair[ed] the effect of a pardon, and thus infring[ed] the con-
stitutional  power  of  the  Executive.”    Id.,  at  147.  “To  the 
executive alone is intrusted the power of pardon,” and the
“legislature cannot change the effect of such a pardon any 
more than the executive can change a law.”  Id., at 147–148. 
The President’s authority to pardon, in other words, is “con-
clusive and preclusive,” “disabling the Congress from acting
upon  the  subject.”  Youngstown,  343  U. S.,  at  637–638 
(Jackson, J., concurring).

Some of the President’s other constitutional powers also 
fit that description.  “The President’s power to remove—and 
thus supervise—those who wield executive power on his be-
half,” for instance, “follows from the text of Article II.”  Seila 
Law  LLC  v.  Consumer  Financial  Protection  Bureau,  591 
U. S.  197,  204  (2020).    We  have  thus  held  that  Congress 
lacks  authority  to  control  the  President’s  “unrestricted 
power of removal” with respect to “executive officers of the 
United  States  whom  he  has  appointed.”    Myers  v.  United 
States, 272 U. S. 52, 106, 176 (1926); see Youngstown, 343 
U. S., at 638, n. 4 (Jackson, J., concurring) (citing the Pres-
ident’s “exclusive power of removal in executive agencies” 
as an example of “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional 
authority); cf. Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 215 (noting only “two 
exceptions to the President’s unrestricted removal power”).
The power “to control recognition determinations” of foreign 
countries is likewise an “exclusive power of the President.” 
Zivotofsky v. Kerry, 576 U. S. 1, 32 (2015).  Congressional
commands contrary to the President’s recognition determi-
nations are thus invalid.  Ibid. 

Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the 
President’s  actions  on  subjects  within  his  “conclusive  and 
preclusive” constitutional authority.  It follows that an Act