What specific allegations in the January 6 federal indictment did the Supreme Court identify as potentially official acts?
Executive summary
The Supreme Court’s July decision narrowed what parts of the Jan. 6 indictment could be treated as “official acts,” explicitly flagging some allegations as within the outer perimeter of presidential duties while carving out other conduct for the trial court to decide; most notably, the Court said communications trying to influence the Justice Department were covered by immunity and that the indictment’s claims about pressuring Vice President Pence about the Electoral College certification involved official conduct [1] [2].
1. The core holdings the Court announced about “official acts”
In its slip opinion the Supreme Court held that a former President enjoys absolute immunity for actions within the “outer perimeter” of official responsibilities and presumptive immunity for other official acts, and it ordered the trial court to decide which specific allegations in the Jan. 6 indictment fell on the official side of that line [1] [3].
2. Communications with the Justice Department: a concrete immunity finding
The Court made a specific, narrow determination that the indictment’s allegations about the former President’s discussions with Justice Department officials were protected by presidential immunity, which led prosecutors to excise some of those counts in a later superseding indictment [2] [4].
3. Pressuring the Vice President over certification: identified as official conduct
The Court expressly said the indictment’s allegations that the President attempted to pressure the Vice President to take specific actions in the certification proceeding “involve official conduct,” because the Vice President’s role in counting electoral votes is a constitutional and statutory duty, and thus those allegations are at least presumptively official and were sent back for district-court consideration [1] [3].
4. What the Court left unresolved — a roadmap back to the district court
Beyond the DOJ communications and the Pence-related allegations, the Court did not categorically label other alleged actions as official or unofficial; instead it directed the district court (and ultimately the parties) to parse the indictment line-by-line to decide whether each act was an official one and, if so, whether it was core or non-core, weighing the danger that prosecution would intrude on Executive Branch functions [1] [3].
5. How prosecutors responded and the practical effect on the indictment
Special Counsel Jack Smith refiled a slimmer, superseding indictment that removed or pared allegations tied to interactions with the Justice Department—an explicit effort to comply with the Supreme Court’s immunity signals—while keeping charges tied to schemes to submit alternate electors and other conduct that the government contends falls outside protected official acts [4] [3].
6. Competing legal interpretations and political subtext
Legal commentators and fact-checkers noted that the Court’s instruction to distinguish official from unofficial acts injects complex factual inquiry into prosecution, opening the door to differing readings about what falls within the president’s “outer perimeter”; critics argue the ruling grants the presidency wide protection that could immunize troubling conduct, while supporters stress separation-of-powers concerns and the need to avoid chilling future presidents [5] [2].
7. Limits of available reporting and remaining questions
Public reporting and the Court’s opinion identify the DOJ communications and the Pence-pressuring allegations as the clearest examples, but sources show the district court was tasked with finer-grained factual sorting and that many contested acts were not definitively categorized by the Supreme Court itself—meaning further judicial findings were necessary to resolve which other indictment allegations were “official” [1] [2].