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Page Number: 36.0

4 

TRUMP v. VANCE 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

be impeached, tried, and upon conviction of treason, brib-
ery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from 
office;  and  would  afterwards  be  liable  to  prosecution  and 
punishment in the ordinary course of law.”  The Federalist 
No. 69, p. 416 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961).  Hamilton did not say 
that  the  President  was  temporarily  immune  from  judicial 
process.  Moreover, he made this comment to reassure read-
ers that the President was “amenable to personal punish-
ment and disgrace.”  Id., at 422.  For the President, this is 
at best ambiguous evidence that cannot overcome the clear 
evidence discussed above. 

The President further relies on a private letter written by
President  Jefferson.  In  the  letter,  Jefferson  worried  that 
the Executive would lose his independence “if he were sub-
ject to the commands of the [judiciary], & to imprisonment
for disobedience; if the several courts could bandy him from 
pillar to post, keep him constantly trudging from north to
south & east to west, and withdraw him entirely from his
constitutional duties.”  10 Works of Thomas Jefferson 404 
n. (P. Ford ed. 1905) (emphasis in original).  But President 
Jefferson  never  squarely  argued  for  absolute  immunity.
Yoo,  The  First  Claim:  The  Burr  Trial,  United  States  v. 
Nixon, and Presidential Power, 83 Minn. L. Rev. 1435, 1450 
(1999).  And, the concern Jefferson had about demands on 
the President’s time is addressed by the standard that Chief 
Justice Marshall articulated in Burr.  See infra, at 6–7. 

The  President  also  quotes  the  views  of  Vice  President
John  Adams  and  then-Senator  Oliver  Ellsworth  in  1789. 
The record of the conversation we have from a fellow Sena-
tor’s diary is brief.  Adams or Ellsworth (or perhaps both) 
stated that “you could only impeach [the President], and no
other process whatever lay against him.”  Journal of Wil-
liam  Maclay  167  (E.  Maclay  ed.  1890).  The  only  reason 
given was that it would “stop the whole machine of Govern-
ment.”  Ibid.  Senator Philip Schuyler joined the conversa-
tion and gave his own reason: “ ‘I think the President [is] a