Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/19-635_o7jq.pdf
Page Number: 16

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

Executive Branch.  As the head of that branch, the Presi-
dent  “occupies  a  unique  position  in  the  constitutional 
scheme.”  Nixon  v.  Fitzgerald,  457  U. S.  731,  749  (1982).
His duties, which range from faithfully executing the laws 
to commanding the Armed Forces, are of unrivaled gravity 
and breadth.  Quite appropriately, those duties come with 
protections  that  safeguard  the  President’s  ability  to  per-
form his vital functions.  See, e.g., ibid. (concluding that the 
President enjoys “absolute immunity from damages liabil-
ity predicated on his official acts”); Nixon, 418 U. S., at 708 
(recognizing  that  presidential  communications  are  pre-
sumptively privileged).

In addition, the Constitution guarantees “the entire inde-
pendence of the General Government from any control by
the respective States.”  Farmers and Mechanics Sav. Bank 
of Minneapolis v. Minnesota, 232 U. S. 516, 521 (1914).  As 
we have often repeated, “States have no power . . . to retard, 
impede, burden, or in any manner control the operations of 
the constitutional laws enacted by Congress.”  McCulloch v. 
Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 436 (1819).  It follows that States 
also lack the power to impede the President’s execution of 
those laws. 

Marshall’s  ruling  in  Burr,  entrenched  by  200  years  of
practice  and  our  decision  in  Nixon,  confirms  that  federal 
criminal subpoenas do not “rise to the level of constitution-
ally forbidden impairment of the Executive’s ability to per-
form its constitutionally mandated functions.”  Clinton, 520 
U. S., at 702–703.  But the President, joined in part by the
Solicitor  General,  argues  that  state  criminal  subpoenas
pose  a  unique  threat  of  impairment  and  thus  demand 
greater protection.  To be clear, the President does not con-
tend here that this subpoena, in particular, is impermissi-
bly burdensome.  Instead he makes a categorical argument 
about the burdens generally associated with state criminal 
subpoenas,  focusing  on  three:  diversion,  stigma,  and  har-
assment.  We address each in turn.