Page:SCOTUS No. 23–939 DONALD J. TRUMP, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES.pdf/103

 nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office”). Instead of no immunity (the individual accountability model) or an unqualified grant of absolute immunity for “all official acts,” Brief for Petitioner 44 (emphasis added), the majority purports to adopt something of a hybrid. It holds that a former President may or may not be immune from criminal prosecution for conduct undertaken while in office, to be determined on a case-by-case basis. According to the majority, whether a former President is immune depends on how his criminal conduct is classified, as among three possible categories.

First, with respect to any criminal conduct relating to a President’s “core constitutional powers”—those subjects “within his ‘conclusive and preclusive’ constitutional authority”—the President is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. See ante, at 6, 8. Second, expanding outward from this “core,” regarding all other “acts within the outer perimeter of [the President’s] official responsibility,” the President is entitled to “at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution.” Ante, at 14.