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Page Number: 40

32 

TRUMP v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

tools may suffice to protect the constitutional rights of indi-
vidual  criminal  defendants,  the  interests  that  underlie 
Presidential  immunity  seek  to  protect  not  the  President 
himself, but the institution of the Presidency.3 

IV 
A 
Trump asserts a far broader immunity than the limited 
one we have recognized.  He contends that the indictment 
must  be  dismissed  because  the  Impeachment  Judgment 
Clause  requires  that  impeachment  and  Senate  conviction
precede a President’s criminal prosecution.  Brief for Peti-
tioner 16. 

The text of the Clause provides little support for such an 
absolute  immunity.    It  states  that  an  impeachment  judg-
ment “shall not extend further than to removal from Office, 
and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor,
Trust or Profit under the United States.”  Art. I, §3, cl. 7.  It 
then  specifies  that  “the  Party  convicted  shall  nevertheless 
be  liable  and  subject  to  Indictment,  Trial,  Judgment  and
Punishment,  according  to  Law.”  Ibid.  (emphasis  added). 
—————— 

3 JUSTICE BARRETT disagrees, arguing that in a bribery prosecution, for 
instance, excluding “any mention” of the official act associated with the
bribe “would hamstring the prosecution.”  Post, at 6 (opinion concurring 
in part); cf. post, at 25–27 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.).  But of course the 
prosecutor may point to the public record to show the fact that the Pres-
ident performed the official act.  And the prosecutor may admit evidence
of what the President allegedly demanded, received, accepted, or agreed
to receive or accept in return for being influenced in the performance of 
the  act.    See  18  U. S. C.  §201(b)(2).    What  the  prosecutor  may  not  do, 
however,  is  admit  testimony  or  private  records  of  the  President  or  his 
advisers  probing  the  official  act  itself.    Allowing  that  sort  of  evidence 
would invite the jury to inspect the President’s motivations for his official
actions and to second-guess their propriety.  As we have explained, such
inspection would be “highly intrusive” and would “ ‘seriously cripple’ ” the 
President’s exercise of his official duties.  Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 745, 
756 (quoting Spalding v. Vilas, 161 U. S. 483, 498 (1896)); see supra, at 
18.  And such second-guessing would “threaten the independence or ef-
fectiveness of the Executive.”  Trump v. Vance, 591 U. S. 786, 805 (2020).