Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Page Number: 46

38 

TRUMP v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

the  Constitution.  But  there  is  no  “ ‘separation  of  powers 
clause’ ” either.  Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 227.  Yet that doc-
trine is undoubtedly carved into the Constitution’s text by
its three articles separating powers and vesting the Execu-
tive  power  solely  in  the  President.  See  ibid.    And  the  
Court’s prior decisions, such as Nixon and Fitzgerald, have 
long recognized that doctrine as mandating certain Presi-
dential privileges and immunities, even though the Consti-
tution contains no explicit “provision for immunity.”  Post, 
at 4; see Part II–B–1, supra.  Neither the dissents nor the 
Government disavow any of those prior decisions.  See Tr. 
of Oral Arg. 76–77. 

The principal dissent then cites the Impeachment Judg-
ment Clause, arguing that it “clearly contemplates that a
former President may be subject to criminal prosecution.” 
Post, at 6.  But that Clause does not indicate whether a for-
mer President may, consistent with the separation of pow-
ers, be prosecuted for his official conduct in particular.  See 
supra, at 32–33.  And the assortment of historical sources 
the principal dissent cites are unhelpful for the same rea-
son.  See post, at 6–8.  As the Court has previously noted, 
relevant historical evidence on the question of Presidential 
immunity is of a “fragmentary character.”  Fitzgerald, 457 
U. S., at 752, n. 31; see also Clinton, 520 U. S., at 696–697; 
cf. Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 634 (Jackson, J., concurring) 
(noting “the poverty of really useful and unambiguous au-
thority  applicable  to  concrete  problems  of  executive
power”). 
“[T]he  most  compelling  arguments,”  therefore, 
“arise from the Constitution’s separation of powers and the 
Judiciary’s historic understanding of that doctrine.”  Fitz-
gerald, 457 U. S., at 752, n. 31. 

The Court’s prior admonition is evident in the principal
dissent’s citations.  Some of its cherry-picked sources do not
even discuss the President in particular.  See, e.g., post, at 
7–8 (citing 2 Debates on the Constitution 177 (J. Elliot ed. 
1836); 2 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the