Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Page Number: 90

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

23 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

opinion.  With  broad  official-acts  immunity  covering  the 
field, this ostensibly narrower immunity serves little pur-
pose.  In any event, this case simply does not turn on con-
duct  within  the  President’s  “exclusive  sphere  of  constitu-
tional authority,” and the majority’s attempt to apply a core
immunity of its own making expands the concept of “core
constitutional powers,” ante, at 6, beyond any recognizable 
bounds. 

The idea of a narrow core immunity might have some in-
tuitive appeal, in a case that actually presented the issue. 
If the President’s power is “conclusive and preclusive” on a 
given  subject,  then  Congress  should  not  be  able  to  “ac[t ] 
upon the subject.”  Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 
343 U. S. 579, 638 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring).  In his 
Youngstown  concurrence,  Justice  Robert  Jackson  posited 
that  the  President’s  “power  of  removal  in  executive  agen-
cies” seemed to fall within this narrow category.  Ibid., n. 4. 
Other  decisions  of  this  Court  indicate  that  the  pardon 
power also falls in this category, see United States v. Klein, 
13  Wall.  128,  147  (1872)  (“To  the  executive  alone  is  in-
trusted  the  power  of  pardon;  and  it  is  granted  without
limit”), as does the power to recognize foreign countries, see 
Zivotofsky v. Kerry, 576 U. S. 1, 32 (2015) (holding that the
President has “exclusive power . . . to control recognition de-
terminations”).

In  this  case,  however,  the  question  whether  a  former
President enjoys a narrow immunity for the “exercise of his
core  constitutional  powers,”  ante,  at  6,  has  never  been  at 
issue,  and  for  good  reason:  Trump  was  not  criminally  in-
dicted for taking actions that the Constitution places in the 
unassailable core of Executive power.  He was not charged,
for example, with illegally wielding the Presidency’s pardon
power or veto power or appointment power or even removal 
power.  Instead, Trump was charged with a conspiracy to
commit fraud to subvert the Presidential election.  It is true 
that the detailed indictment in this case alleges that Trump