Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

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

15 

Opinion of the Court 

decide it.  “[O]ne case” in more than “two centuries does not
afford  enough  experience”  to  definitively  and  comprehen-
sively  determine  the  President’s  scope  of  immunity  from
criminal prosecution.  Mazars, 591 U. S., at 871. 

C 
As for a President’s unofficial acts, there is no immunity.
The  principles  we  set  out  in  Clinton  v.  Jones  confirm  as 
much.  When Paula Jones brought a civil lawsuit against 
then-President Bill Clinton for acts he allegedly committed 
prior  to  his  Presidency,  we  rejected  his  argument  that  he
enjoyed temporary immunity from the lawsuit while serv-
ing as President.  520 U. S., at 684.  Although Presidential
immunity is required for official actions to ensure that the 
President’s decisionmaking is not distorted by the threat of
future litigation stemming from those actions, that concern 
does  not  support  immunity  for  unofficial  conduct.  Id.,  at 
694, and n. 19.  The “ ‘justifying purposes’ ” of the immunity 
we recognized in Fitzgerald, and  the one we recognize to-
day, are not that the President must be immune because he
is the President; rather, they are to ensure that the Presi-
dent  can  undertake  his  constitutionally  designated  func-
tions effectively, free from undue pressures or distortions. 
520 U. S., at 694, and n. 19 (quoting Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., 
at 755).  “[I]t [is] the nature of the function performed, not
the  identity  of  the  actor  who  perform[s]  it,  that  inform[s] 
our immunity analysis.”  Forrester v. White, 484 U. S. 219, 
229 (1988).  The separation of powers does not bar a prose-
cution predicated on the President’s unofficial acts.2 

—————— 

2 Our  decision  in  Clinton  permitted  claims  alleging  unofficial  acts  to 
proceed against the sitting President.  See 520 U. S., at 684.  In the crim-
inal context, however, the Justice Department “has long recognized” that
“the separation of powers precludes the criminal prosecution of a sitting
President.”  Brief for United States 9 (citing A Sitting President’s Ame-
nability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution, 24 Op. OLC 222 (2000); 
emphasis deleted); see Tr. for Oral Arg. 78.