Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Page Number: 95

28 

TRUMP v. UNITED STATES 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

“turned  to  a  private  attorney  who  was  willing  to  spread 
knowingly  false  claims  of  election  fraud  to  spearhead  his 
challenges to the election results” “sounds private.”  Tr. of 
Oral Arg. 29.  He likewise conceded that the allegation that 
Trump  “conspired  with  another  private  attorney  who 
caused the filing in court of a verification signed by [Trump]
that  contained  false  allegations  to  support  a  challenge”
“sounds  private.”  Ibid.;  see  also  id.,  at  36–37  (Trump’s
counsel explaining that it is not “disputed” that such con-
duct is “unofficial”).  Again, when asked about allegations
that “[t]hree private actors . . . helped implement a plan to 
submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct
the certification proceeding, and [Trump] and a co-conspira-
tor attorney directed that effort,” Trump’s counsel conceded 
the alleged conduct was “private.”  Id., at 29–30.  Only the 
majority  thinks  that  organizing  fraudulent  slates  of  elec-
tors  might  qualify  as  an  official  act  of  the  President,  see 
ante, at 24–28, or at least an act so “interrelated” with other 
allegedly official acts that it might warrant protection, ante, 
at 28.  If the majority’s sweeping conception of “official acts” 
has any real limits, the majority is unwilling to reveal them 
in today’s decision. 

Second, the majority designates certain conduct immune 
while  refusing  to  recognize  anything  as  prosecutable.    It 
shields  large  swaths  of  conduct  involving  the  Justice  De-
partment with immunity, see ante, at 19–21; see also Part 
V, supra, but it does not give an inch in the other direction. 
The majority admits that the Vice President’s responsibility
“ ‘presiding over the Senate’ ” is “ ‘not an “executive branch”
function,’ ” and it further admits that the President “plays
no direct constitutional or statutory role” in the counting of 
electoral votes.  Ante, at 23–24.  Yet the majority refuses to
conclude  that  Trump  lacks  immunity  for  his  alleged  at-
tempts to “enlist the Vice President to use his ceremonial
role  at  the  January  6  certification  proceeding  to  fraudu-
lently  alter  the  election  results.”    App.  187,  Indictment