Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Page Number: 59

8 

TRUMP v. UNITED STATES 

THOMAS, J., concurring 

tial prosecution proceeds, we should at least provide a ful-
some explanation of why that is so. 

Even if the Special Counsel has a valid office, questions 
remain as to whether the Attorney General filled that office 
in compliance with the Appointments Clause.  For example,
it  must  be  determined  whether  the  Special  Counsel  is  a 
principal or inferior officer.  If the former, his appointment
is invalid because the Special Counsel was not nominated
by the President and confirmed by the Senate, as principal
officers must be.  Art. II, §2, cl. 2.  Even if he is an inferior 
officer,  the  Attorney  General  could  appoint  him  without 
Presidential nomination and senatorial confirmation only if
“Congress . . . by law vest[ed] the Appointment” in the At-
torney General as a “Hea[d] of Department.”  Ibid.  So, the 
Special  Counsel’s  appointment  is  invalid  unless  a  statute
created the Special Counsel’s office and gave the Attorney 
General the power to fill it “by Law.”

Whether the Special Counsel’s office was “established by
Law”  is  not  a  trifling  technicality.  If  Congress  has  not
reached  a  consensus  that  a  particular  office  should  exist,
the  Executive  lacks  the  power  to  unilaterally  create  and
then  fill  that  office.  Given  that  the  Special  Counsel  pur-
ports to wield the Executive Branch’s power to prosecute, 
the consequences are weighty.  Our Constitution’s separa-
tion of powers, including its separation of the powers to cre-
ate and fill offices, is “the absolutely central guarantee of a 
just Government” and the liberty that it secures for us all. 
Morrison, 487 U. S., at 697 (Scalia, J., dissenting).  There is 
no prosecution that can justify imperiling it. 

* 

* 
In this case, there has been much discussion about ensur-
ing  that  a  President  “is  not  above  the  law.”  But,  as  the 
Court explains, the President’s immunity from prosecution 
for his official acts is the law.  The Constitution provides for 

*