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Page Number: 15

10 

TRUMP v. VANCE 

Opinion of the Court 

for the production of evidence needed either by the prosecu-
tion or the defense.”  Ibid. 

The Court thus concluded that the President’s “general-
ized assertion of privilege must yield to the demonstrated,
specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial.”  Id., 
at 713.  Two weeks later, President Nixon dutifully released 
the tapes. 

III 
The history surveyed above all involved federal criminal 
proceedings.  Here we are confronted for the first time with 
a  subpoena  issued  to  the  President  by  a  local  grand  jury 
operating under the supervision of a state court.5 

In the President’s view, that distinction makes all the dif-
ference.  He argues that the Supremacy Clause gives a sit-
ting President absolute immunity from state criminal sub-
poenas  because  compliance  with  those  subpoenas  would 
categorically impair a President’s performance of his Arti-
cle II functions.  The Solicitor General, arguing on behalf of
the United States, agrees with much of the President’s rea-
soning but does not commit to his bottom line.  Instead, the 
Solicitor  General  urges  us  to  resolve  this  case  by  holding 
that  a  state  grand  jury  subpoena  for  a  sitting  President’s 
personal records must, at the very least, “satisfy a height-
ened  standard  of  need,”  which  the  Solicitor  General  con-
tends was not met here.  Brief for United States as Amicus 
Curiae 26, 29. 

We begin with the question of absolute immunity.  No one 
doubts that Article II guarantees the independence of the 

A 

—————— 

5 While the subpoena was directed to the President’s accounting firm, 
the  parties  agree  that  the  papers  at  issue  belong  to  the  President  and
that Mazars is merely the custodian.  Thus, for purposes of immunity, it 
is functionally a subpoena issued to the President.