Cite as: 520 U. S. 681 (1997)
Breyer, J., concurring in judgment
Three days earlier Jefferson had written to the same correspondent:
"To comply with such calls would leave the nation without an executive branch, whose agency, nevertheless, is understood to be so constantly necessary, that it is the sole branch which the constitution requires to be always in function. It could not then mean that it should be withdrawn from its station by any co-ordinate authority." 10 Works of Thomas Jefferson, at 401 (letter of June 17, 1807, from Thomas Jefferson to George Hay).
Jefferson, like Adams and Ellsworth, argued strongly for an immunity from both criminal and civil judicial process—an immunity greater in scope than any immunity, or any special scheduling factor, now at issue in the civil case before us. The significance of his views for present purposes lies in his conviction that the Constitution protected a sitting President from litigation that would "withdraw" a President from his current "constitutional duties." That concern may not have applied to Mr. Fitzgerald's 1982 case against a former President, but it is at issue in the current litigation.
Precedent that suggests to the contrary—that the Constitution does not offer a sitting President significant protections from potentially distracting civil litigation—consists of the following: (1) In several instances sitting Presidents have given depositions or testified at criminal trials, and (2) this Court has twice authorized the enforcement of subpoenas seeking documents from a sitting President for use in a criminal case.
I agree with the majority that these precedents reject any absolute Presidential immunity from all court process. But they do not cast doubt upon Justice Story's basic conclusion that "in civil cases," a sitting President "possess[es] an official inviolability" as necessary to permit him to "perform" the duties of his office without "obstruction or impediment."
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