Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-635_o7jq.pdf
Page Number: 18.0

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

recognized that Presidents constantly face myriad demands
on their attention, “some private, some political, and some 
as a result of official duty.”  Id., at 705, n. 40.  But, the Court 
concluded, “[w]hile such distractions may be vexing to those 
subjected to them, they do not ordinarily implicate consti-
tutional . . . concerns.”  Ibid. 

The  same  is  true  of  criminal  subpoenas.  Just  as  a 
“properly  managed”  civil  suit  is  generally  “unlikely  to  oc-
cupy any substantial amount of ” a President’s time or at-
tention, id., at 702, two centuries of experience confirm that 
a  properly  tailored  criminal  subpoena  will  not  normally 
hamper  the  performance  of  the  President’s  constitutional 
duties.  If anything, we expect that in the mine run of cases, 
where a President is subpoenaed during a proceeding tar-
geting someone else, as Jefferson was, the burden on a Pres-
ident will ordinarily be lighter than the burden of defending 
against a civil suit.

The President, however, believes the district attorney is
investigating him and his businesses.  In such a situation, 
he contends, the “toll that criminal process . . . exacts from 
the President is even heavier” than the distraction at issue 
in  Fitzgerald  and  Clinton,  because  “criminal  litigation”
poses unique burdens on the President’s time and will gen-
erate a “considerable if not overwhelming degree of mental
preoccupation.”    Brief  for  Petitioner  16–18,  30  (internal
quotation marks omitted). 

But the President is not seeking immunity from the di-
version occasioned by the prospect of future criminal liabil-
ity.  Instead  he  concedes—consistent  with  the  position  of 
the Department of Justice—that state grand juries are free 
to investigate a sitting President with an eye toward charg-
ing him after the completion of his term.  See Reply Brief 
19 (citing Memorandum from Randolph D. Moss, Assistant 
Atty. Gen., Office of Legal Counsel, to the Atty. Gen.: A Sit-
ting  President’s  Amenability  to  Indictment  and  Criminal 
Prosecution,  24  Op.  OLC  222,  257,  n. 36  (Oct.  16,  2000)).