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Page Number: 36.0

28 

TRUMP v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

the  indictment’s  extensive  and  interrelated  allegations. 
See  App.  192–215,  Indictment  ¶¶13–69.    Unlike  Trump’s
alleged interactions with the Justice Department, this al-
leged conduct cannot be neatly categorized as falling within
a particular Presidential function.  The necessary analysis
is instead fact specific, requiring assessment of numerous 
alleged  interactions  with  a  wide  variety  of  state  officials 
and  private  persons.  And  the  parties’  brief  comments  at 
oral  argument  indicate  that  they  starkly  disagree  on  the 
characterization  of  these  allegations.    The  concerns  we 
noted at the outset—the expedition of this case, the lack of 
factual analysis by the lower courts, and the absence of per-
tinent  briefing  by  the  parties—thus  become  more  promi-
nent.  We accordingly remand to the District Court to de-
termine  in  the  first  instance—with  the  benefit  of  briefing
we lack—whether Trump’s conduct in this area qualifies as
official or unofficial. 

4 
Finally,  the  indictment  contains  various  allegations  re-
garding Trump’s conduct in connection with the events of 
January 6 itself.  It alleges that leading up to the January 
6 certification proceeding, Trump issued a series of Tweets 
(to his nearly 89 million followers) encouraging his support-
ers to travel to Washington, D. C., on that day.  See, e.g., 
App.  221,  225–227,  Indictment  ¶¶87–88,  96,  100.    Trump 
and his co-conspirators addressed the gathered public that
morning, asserting that certain States wanted to recertify
their  electoral  votes  and  that  the  Vice  President  had  the 
power to send those States’ ballots back for recertification. 
Id.,  at  228–230,  ¶¶103–104.    Trump  then  allegedly  “di-
rected the crowd in front of him to go to the Capitol” to pres-
sure the Vice President to do so at the certification proceed-
ing.  Id., at 228–230, ¶104.  When it became public that the 
Vice  President  would  not  use  his  role  at  the  certification 
proceeding  to  determine  which  electoral  votes  should  be