Month: April 2025

If Trump v. United States has no foundation in the original meaning of the Constitution (as discussed in my last post), what is the rationale of the decision? Delahunty and Yoo make three main points in support of the majority’s ruling: (1) the holding is consistent with (if not compelled by) the Court’s reasoning in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731 (1982); (2) the holding is consistent with separation of powers principles; and (3) the holding is supported by public policy considerations, specifically the need to end the (allegedly) abusive prosecutions of the former president (and to prevent similar actions in the future). To a significant extent, these justifications amount to different ways of saying the same thing. Today we will look at the Fitzgerald decision and whether the separation of powers/policy rationales of that case provide support for Trump.

Fitzgerald held, in a 5-4 decision, that current and former presidents enjoy absolute immunity from civil damage suits for actions taken within the “outer perimeter” of their official duties. The majority opinion by Justice Powell identified a variety of sources of law that were relevant to the issue before it. First, it noted that its prior immunity decisions “have been guided by the Constitution, federal statutes, and history.” 457 U.S. at 747. Second, “at least in the absence of explicit constitutional or congressional guidance, our immunity decisions have been informed by the common law.” Id. Third, the Court “necessarily also has weighed concerns of public policy, especially as illuminated by our history and the structure of our government.” Id. at 747-48.

The Court then suggest that the immunity analysis may be somewhat different for the president:

In the case of the President the inquiries into history and policy, though mandated independently by our cases, tend to converge. Because the Presidency did not exist through most of the development of the common law, any historical analysis must draw its evidence primarily from our constitutional heritage and structure. Historical inquiry thus merges with the kind of “public policy” analysis appropriately undertaken by a federal court. This inquiry involves policies and principles that may be considered implicit in the nature of the President’s office in a system structured to achieve effective government under a constitutionally mandated separation of powers.

457 U.S. at 748.

This is a rather word salady way of saying two things. First, the Court thinks that the president should be treated differently in the immunity analysis than other executive officials, such as cabinet officers and governors. Specifically, while the Court’s precedents called for evaluating immunity based on the particular function being performed by the official who is sued for damages, Fitzgerald found that the unique nature of the presidency required extending immunity to all conduct within the “outer perimeter” of this official responsibility. Id. at 756; see also id. at 750 (“The President’s unique status under the Constitution distinguishes him from other executive officials.”).

The second point is that the grounding of the president’s immunity in separation of powers arguably placed it beyond Congress’s power to regulate. If the Constitution mandates absolute immunity for the president, Congress would be prohibited from imposing damages liability for any conduct within the outer perimeter of his duties. However, the Fitzgerald Court declined to decide whether the president would enjoy immunity in the event Congress enacted a statute which expressly authorized civil damages against the president. See Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 748-49 n.27 (“our holding today need only be that the President is absolutely immune from civil damages liability for his official acts in the absence of explicit affirmative action by Congress”).

This position was criticized by both the dissenters and Chief Justice Burger in his concurrence; they agreed that it was inconsistent for the majority to both claim that the president had absolute immunity based on separation of powers, on the one hand, and to leave open whether this immunity could be abrogated by affirmative congressional action, on the other. See Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 792 “We are never told . . . how or why congressional action could make a difference.”) (White J., dissenting); id. at 798 (Blackmun, J., dissenting); id. at 758, 763 n.7 (Burger, C.J., concurring).

The internal correspondence of the Fitzgerald Court shows that almost all of the justices, in fact, believed that this was a contradiction, though they were sharply divided on which way it should be resolved. The four dissenting justices, of course, believed the Constitution provide no immunity, while at least two other justices in the majority privately agreed with Burger that the constitutional immunity would apply even in the face of a statute to the contrary. Powell also indicated he would agree with Burger should the issue be presented, though he fluctuated somewhat on how definite this position was. Only Justice Stevens was firmly in the undecided camp, and he evidently refused to join the majority opinion unless it clearly spelled out that affirmative congressional action would present a different case.

Personally, I can see where Stevens was coming from. Although the Fitzgerald Court states that “[w]e consider [the president’s immunity from civil damages] a functionally mandated incident of the President’s unique office, rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation of powers and supported by our history,” 457 U.S. at 749, these buzzwords mean very little. The fact that the Court “considers” immunity to be a “functionally mandated incident of the President’s unique office” just means that it believes subjecting the president to civil damages is a bad idea that would interfere with his ability to do his job. That it is “rooted in the separation of powers” is little more than another way to refer to the president’s “unique office,” or, as the Court phrases it later, “the special nature of the President’s constitutional office and functions.” See 457 U.S. at 756. The claim that immunity is “supported by our history” appears to be mostly meaningless filler.

Indeed, Powell’s early drafts used the phrase “justified by considerations of public policy” instead of “supported by our history.” He changed this wording, and made several other edits, in response to comments from his colleagues that the draft was too forthright in acknowledging that the decision was essentially an exercise of judicial policymaking. One particularly amusing memo from Stevens expresses concern about the frequent references to public policy and descriptions of “the Executive’s immunity as something that is granted by the Court rather than provided by law.” He explained that “[i]n a realistic sense, perhaps your opinion is entirely correct in referring to grants of immunity by judges, but I feel much more comfortable when I am able to say that we are merely applying the law as we understand it to exist independently of the composition of the Court.” Powell dutifully made the cosmetic changes, but the dissent still pointed out the reality. See 457 U.S. at 769 (noting that “the judgment in this case has few, if any, indicia of a judicial decision; it is almost wholly a policy choice, a choice that is without substantial support and that in all events is ambiguous in its reach and import”) (White, J., dissenting).

Given that, in a “realistic sense,” the opinion was more of a policy choice than a judicial decision, it is understandable that Stevens insisted on reserving the question of what would happen if Congress acted to impose liability on the president. Congress is rather better suited than the Court to make a policy judgment about whether the president should be subject to civil liability. Even if one accepts that the Constitution requires the courts to balance the public interest supporting and opposing immunity, the fact of congressional action would seem to be a factor that should be considered in weighing the competing interests (a point Powell made to his skeptical colleagues in an internal memo).

It is also worth noting that the Fitzgerald Court’s rhetoric about the president’s “unique office” should be taken with a grain of salt. In a case several years earlier, Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478 (1978), the Court had held by a 5-4 majority that cabinet officers and other federal officials were generally entitled only to qualified immunity in civil damage suits. The dissent, however, contended that absolute immunity should apply. Three of the four dissenters in Butz joined the majority in Fitzgerald, while four members of the Butz majority dissented in Fitzgerald. Powell was the only justice who switched sides, and thus perhaps the only one who thought the president’s unique office was determinative of the level of immunity. (Justice O’Connor, who joined the majority opinion in Fitzgerald, had not been on the Court when Butz was decided). The decision to provide absolute immunity to the president but not to cabinet officers is thus one not necessarily dictated by the reasoning of either Butz or Fitzgerald. Cf. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 784 (pointing out that the majority’s concerns about the chilling effect of civil lawsuits would apply to all officers, not just the president) (White, J., dissenting). Continue reading “Immunity, Impeachment and the Juristocracy (Part II: Nixon v. Fitzgerald)”

Today I will start a series of posts on the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential criminal immunity, Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. __, 144 S.Ct. 2312 (2024), and its implications for the legal accountability of the executive. While I am harshly critical of that decision, my main purpose is not to show that it is wrong, but rather that it (along with related developments) dramatically increases the need for systemic congressional oversight of executive (not just presidential) wrongdoing. Moreover, because the decision also threatens Congress’s authority to conduct ordinary legislative oversight, the exercise of the oversight power in the House should be integrated to the extent possible with the impeachment power. Finally, because the courts may refuse to assist or actively thwart congressional investigations, Congress should seek to minimize judicial involvement in any aspect of its inquiries.

Today’s post will address the Trump decision from the perspective of original meaning. Again, my point is not so much that the decision is wrong (though it definitely is), but that its reasoning is untethered to any standard other than the personal opinions of at least five justices, which at the present time happen to be extremely pro-executive power. As Robert Delahunty and John Yoo wrote recently, the Court’s decision in Trump is “one of the most resounding defenses of executive power in its history.” While they mean that as a compliment, not everyone will view it as self-evidently laudatory.

Regarding the legal merits of the decision, Professor Jack Goldsmith commented shortly after the decision came down:

Many people seem to have a strong opinion about whether the Court’s recognition of fairly broad presidential immunity was “right” or “wrong.” But the standard sources of constitutional law do not permit a definitive answer to that question.

I respectfully disagree. I do think the “standard sources of constitutional law” permit a definitive answer to the question. Specifically, the most standard of all sources of constitutional law, namely the text of the Constitution, dictates the answer to the question.

To see why, let’s take a look at the “defense” of Trump offered by Delahunty and Yoo. I put the word “defense” in quotes because their argument clarifies the nature of the Court’s decision in a way that the majority, I think, might find less than congenial.

It is not surprising that Delahunty and Yoo would be supportive of the Trump decision. First, they are legal conservatives who would ordinarily be expected to agree with and defend the Court’s conservative majority. Second, they are veterans of the Office of Legal Counsel with expansive views of executive power. Third, as the piece itself makes clear, they are harshly critical of the supposed “lawfare” against Donald Trump.

Despite their strong predisposition to agree with the outcome of the Trump case, Delahunty and Yoo are clear about its lack of foundation in the original meaning of the Constitution. (To be sure, many other scholars have noted the non-originalist nature of the decision, but few of them are as enthusiastic about the result as Delahunty and Yoo). They acknowledge that “the Court rejected the strong originalist evidence against presidential immunity” and observe that “Chief Justice Roberts’ reasoning ran contrary to the textual and historical evidence at hand, which Justice Sotomayor’s dissent briefly surveyed.”

The authors go on to discuss Alexander Hamilton’s commentary in the Federalist Papers to buttress their point. They cite Federalist No. 69, in which Hamilton states: “The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” They further cite Hamilton’s explanation in Federalist No. 65 that impeachment and conviction does not “terminate the chastisement of the offender,” who rather “will still be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.”

What is interesting is that Delahunty and Yoo cease their analysis of the original meaning there, as if Hamilton’s statements standing alone refute the Trump Court’s position. They simply state “[i]t is difficult, if not impossible, to find evidence from the founding period that overcomes Hamilton’s clear statements, which he made to defend the proposed Constitution during the fight over ratification.” They then move on from the “originalist” portion of their argument. The implication is that Hamilton’s “clear statements” refute the Court’s conclusion, unless one can find other evidence to “overcome” them.

But nothing in the Trump Court’s opinion ostensibly disagrees with Hamilton’s statements. The Court does not dispute that criminal prosecution may follow impeachment and conviction, which after all is explicitly set forth in the Impeachment Judgment Clause of the Constitution itself. See U.S. Const., art. I, § 3, cl.7 (“Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”). Nor did the Court claim that the president is categorically excluded from the Impeachment Judgment Clause. It therefore acknowledges that in some cases Hamilton is correct that a former president would “be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.”

What Chief Justice Roberts claims is that while the Impeachment Judgment Clause shows that a former president may be prosecuted, it “does not indicate whether . . . [he may] be prosecuted for his official conduct in particular.” Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. ___, slip op. at 38 (emphasis in original). Similarly, he cursorily dismisses other founding era evidence, including Federalist No. 69, on they ground they fail to “indicate whether [the president] may be prosecuted for his official conduct.” Id., slip op. at 39. Thus, the chief justice might say, a former president can be prosecuted for murdering his wife or robbing a bank, just not for official misconduct.

Delahunty and Yoo fail to respond to this argument, which is hard to explain. Perhaps they felt it was so self-evidently disingenuous that responding would undercut the remainder of the article, which praises the decision for various non-originalist reasons. Whatever the reason, they do not point out the obvious flaw in Roberts’s position, which is that impeachment is directed first and foremost at official misconduct. Hamilton’s audience was not concerned with the possibility that a president might murder his wife or rob a bank. They were worried about a president who might abuse his office for treasonous or corrupt purposes.

Although the impeachment provisions of the Constitution apply to a wide range of civil officers, they were drafted primarily with the president in mind. See, e.g., Raoul Berger, Impeachment: The Constitutional Problems 106 (1973) (“in the impeachment debate the Convention was almost exclusively concerned with the President”). Moreover, the prosecution of presidential criminality was expressly discussed at the Philadelphia Convention. Edmund Randolph, for example, objected to giving the president the pardon power in cases of treason, arguing that “[t]he President may himself be guilty” and “[t]he Traytors may be his own instruments.” James Wilson responded: “Pardon is necessary for cases of treason, and is best placed in the hands of the Executive. If he himself be a party to the guilt he can be impeached and prosecuted.” 2 The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 626 (Max Farrand ed., 1903).

Delahunty and Yoo point out that under Trump “the President enjoys no immunity for private, unofficial acts.” But as they surely know, impeachment is not concerned primarily with such acts. The Impeachment Judgment Clause relates to prosecutions for conduct constituting “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” U.S. const., art. II, § 4. This phrase is aimed principally, if not exclusively, at official misconduct, particularly criminal conduct intimately tied to public office. The Randolph/Wilson colloquy, for example, is about a president who pardons traitors who had been acting as “his own instruments.” This envisions a president who is organizing a treasonous conspiracy under the authority of his office, not one committing treason as a private individual.

Historically there has been great controversy over whether ordinary criminal conduct (such as murder, rape or robbery) is even a proper subject of impeachment. The constitutional treatise writer William Rawle maintained that “[i]n general those offenses which may be committed equally by a private person as a public officer, are not the subjects of impeachment.” William Rawle, A View of the Constitution 215 (1829). Many others have held similar views. See Berger, Impeachment, at 202 (“It is generally said, though a few voices to the contrary are not wanting, that impeachment is limited to acts performed in an official capacity.”). It would make no sense to hold this view if it were understood the Impeachment Judgment Clause applied only to ordinary crimes. Conversely, if there had been even a minority position that the president was immune from prosecution for official acts, one would expect that this would have been advanced in arguments against the view that impeachment is limited to acts performed in an official capacity. The fact that no one argued for presidential official act immunity is therefore strong evidence of an understanding that no such immunity existed.

When Delahunty and Yoo say that Trump was contrary to the “strong originalist evidence” or the “textual and historical evidence,” therefore, what they are actually saying is that Trump is flatly inconsistent both with what the Constitution says and with what it has been uniformly understood to mean. The relative paucity of statements about the president’s potential criminal liability or immunity for official acts reflects not an “unsettled question,” as some have suggested, but the fact that no one thought this was a question at all. (As will be discussed in my next post, the closest I can find to anyone expressing doubt, publicly or privately, about the president’s accountability to the criminal law prior to 2021 is a single comment by Justice Rehnquist which, in context, underscores how marginal the idea was).

If Trump cannot be justified on originalist grounds, what “defense” can be offered of the decision? In my next post I will look at the non-originalist underpinnings of the opinion.