Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Page Number: 47.0

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

39 

Opinion of the Court 

United States §780, pp. 250–251 (1833)).  And none of them 
indicate whether he may be prosecuted for his official con-
duct.  See, e.g., post, at 6, 7, n. 2 (citing The Federalist No. 
69; 4 Debates on the Constitution, at 109).  The principal
dissent’s most compelling piece of evidence consists of ex-
cerpted statements of Charles Pinckney from an 1800 Sen-
ate debate.  See post, at 7.  But those statements reflect only 
the  now-discredited  argument  that  any  immunity  not  ex-
pressly mentioned in the Constitution must not exist.  See 
3 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 384–385
(M. Farrand ed. 1911).  And Pinckney is not exactly a relia-
ble  authority  on  the  separation  of  powers:  He  went  on  to
state on the same day that “it was wrong to give the nomi-
nation of Judges to the President”—an opinion expressly re-
jected by the Framers.  Id., at 385.  Given the Framers’ de-
sire for an energetic and vigorous President, the principal 
dissent’s  view  that  the  Constitution  they  designed  allows
all his actions to be subject to prosecution—even the exer-
cise of powers it grants exclusively to him—defies credulity.
Unable  to  muster  any  meaningful  textual  or  historical
support, the principal dissent suggests that there is an “es-
tablished  understanding”  that  “former  Presidents  are  an-
swerable to the criminal law for their official acts.”  Post, at 
9.  Conspicuously absent is mention of the fact that since
the  founding,  no  President  has  ever  faced  criminal 
charges—let alone for his conduct in office.  And accordingly
no court has ever been faced with the question of a Presi-
dent’s  immunity  from  prosecution.  All  that  our  Nation’s 
practice establishes on the subject is silence. 

Coming  up  short  on  reasoning,  the  dissents  repeatedly
level  variations  of  the  accusation  that  the  Court  has  ren-
dered the President “above the law.”  See, e.g., post, at 1, 3, 
11, 12, 21, 30 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.); post, at 9, 10, 11, 
12, 13, 19 (opinion of JACKSON, J.).  As before, that “rhetor-
ically chilling” contention is “wholly unjustified.”  Fitzger-