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12 

TRUMP v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

“privilege” to withhold certain “official paper[s]” that “ought
not on light ground to be forced into public view.”  United 
States  v.  Burr,  25  F. Cas.  187,  192  (No.  14,694)  (CC  Va. 
1807)  (Burr  II);  see  also  Burr  I,  25  F. Cas.,  at  37  (stating
that nothing before the court showed that the document in
question  “contain[ed]  any  matter  the  disclosure  of  which
would  endanger  the  public  safety”).    And  he  noted  that  a 
court may not “be required to proceed against the president
as against an ordinary individual.”  Burr II, 25 F. Cas., at 
192. 

Similarly, when a subpoena issued to President Nixon to
produce certain tape recordings and documents relating to
his  conversations  with  aides  and  advisers,  this  Court  re-
jected his claim of “absolute privilege,” given the “constitu-
tional duty of the Judicial Branch to do justice in criminal 
prosecutions.”  United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683, 703, 
707 (1974).  But we simultaneously recognized “the public 
interest in candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opin-
ions in Presidential decisionmaking,” as well as the need to 
protect  “communications  between  high  Government  offi-
cials and those who advise and assist them in the perfor-
mance of their manifold duties.”  Id., at 705, 708.  Because 
the  President’s  “need  for  complete  candor  and  objectivity
from advisers calls for great deference from the courts,” we
held  that  a  “presumptive  privilege”  protects  Presidential 
communications.  Id., at  706,  708.  That  privilege,  we  ex-
plained, “relates to the effective discharge of a President’s 
powers.”  Id., at 711.  We thus deemed it “fundamental to 
the operation of Government and inextricably rooted in the 
separation of powers under the Constitution.”  Id., at 708. 

2 

Criminally  prosecuting  a  President  for  official  conduct 
undoubtedly poses a far greater threat of intrusion on the 
authority  and  functions  of  the  Executive  Branch  than 
simply seeking evidence in his possession, as in Burr and