Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-635_o7jq.pdf
Page Number: 20

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

anticipates.  See S. Beale et al., Grand Jury Law and Prac-
tice  §5:1,  p. 5–3  (2d  ed.  2018)  (“[T]he  federal  system  and 
most states have adopted statutes or court rules” that “im-
pose sharp restrictions on the extent to which matters oc-
curring before a grand jury may be divulged” to outside per-
sons.).  Of  course,  disclosure  restrictions  are  not  perfect. 
See Nixon, 418 U. S., at 687, n. 4 (observing that news me-
dia reporting made the protective order shielding the fact 
that the President had been named as an unindicted co-con-
spirator “no longer meaningful”).  But those who make un-
authorized disclosures regarding a grand jury subpoena do
so at their peril.  See, e.g., N. Y.  Penal Law Ann. §215.70 
(West 2010) (designating unlawful grand jury disclosure as 
a felony). 

3 
Finally,  the  President  and  the  Solicitor  General  warn 
that subjecting Presidents to state criminal subpoenas will
make  them  “easily  identifiable  target[s]”  for  harassment. 
Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 753.  But we rejected a nearly iden-
tical argument in Clinton, where then-President Clinton ar-
gued that permitting civil liability for unofficial acts would 
“generate a large volume of politically motivated harassing 
and  frivolous  litigation.”  Clinton,  520  U. S.,  at  708.    The 
President and the Solicitor General nevertheless argue that
state criminal subpoenas pose a heightened risk and could 
undermine  the  President’s  ability  to  “deal  fearlessly  and
impartially” with the States.  Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 752 
(internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    They  caution  that,
while federal prosecutors are accountable to and removable 
by the President, the 2,300 district attorneys in this country 
are  responsive  to  local  constituencies,  local  interests,  and
local prejudices, and might “use criminal process to register
their  dissatisfaction  with”  the  President.    Brief  for  Peti-
tioner 16.  What is more, we are told, the state courts su-