Morton Halperin v. Henry Kissinger Morton Halperin v. Henry Kissinger, Richard M. Nixon, John N. Mitchell, and H. R. Haldeman

606 F.2d 1192, 196 U.S. App. D.C. 285, 1979 U.S. App. LEXIS 13258

Opinions

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Chief Judge:

Morton Halperin, a former member of the National Security Council (NSC) staff, and his family sued ten federal officials for money damages following revelations that their home telephone had been tapped by the Government from May 1969 until February 1971.¹ The Halperins alleged that the wiretap, which was installed during an investigation into public disclosures of confidential information,² was prohibited by both the Fourth Amendment and Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.³ On cross-motions for summary judgment in December 1976 the District Court ruled in favor of all defendants except former President Richard M. Nixon, former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, and former presidential aide H. R. Haldeman.⁴ The court concluded that Nixon, Mitchell, and Haldeman had violated the Halperins’ Fourth Amendment rights, but not the terms of Title III. The Halperins were awarded $1 in nominal damages in August 1977.⁵

Plaintiffs and defendants Nixon, Mitchell, and Haldeman appeal the decision.⁶ The Halperins insist that the District Court erred in not applying Title III, in awarding only nominal damages, and in granting summary judgment in favor of former National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger. The defendants claim absolute immunity from this action and dispute the District Court’s refusal to bar the suit on qualified immunity grounds. We affirm the District Court’s conclusions on the immunity question, but reverse on the applicability of Title III, the proper measures of damages, and defendant Kissinger’s motion for summary judgment. In addition, we believe that the District Court should have applied the warrant requirement for national security wiretaps as articulated in United States v. United States District Court (Keith), 407 U.S. 297, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972), and Zweibon v. Mitchell (Zweibon I), 170 U.S.App.D.C. 1, 516 F.2d 594 (1975) (en banc), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 944, 96 S.Ct. 1684, 48 L.Ed.2d 187 (1976).

I. THE WIRETAP

Shortly after taking office in 1969 President Nixon and his top advisers grew concerned over press disclosures of classified information.⁷ In their view such “leaks” limited the Administration’s flexibility in developing foreign policy and could have eroded the candor of foreign governments in dealings with this country. On April 25, 1969 the President met in his office with Kissinger, Mitchell, and J. Edgar Hoover, the late Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to discuss methods for controlling leaks. Mitchell, Hoover, and Nixon continued the discussion over dinner at Camp David that evening and developed a program, including wiretaps on private telephones, for investigation of suspected “leakers.”⁸ Both Mitchell and Hoover assured Nixon that the President could order such wiretapping without first obtaining a court order.⁹ Three criteria were established at the meeting for identifying individuals to be investigated: (1) access to sensitive data that was being revealed publicly; (2) information in security files that “raised questions” about an individual; and (3) other Incriminating information in FBI files.¹⁰

Over the next two weeks the appearance of several newspaper stories seemingly based on classified reports heightened the Administration’s alarm over leaks.¹¹ The surveillance program was finally triggered by a New York Times article on May 9 revealing massive American bombing of targets in Cambodia.¹² Nixon told Kissinger to ask the FBI to investigate the source for the story.¹³ Although Halperin had no access to the information in the Times article,¹⁴ FBI Director Hoover informed Kissinger that Halperin was the “prime suspect.”¹⁵ Hoover and Kissinger conferred by telephone four times that day,¹⁶ and the wiretap on the Halperin home telephone was in place by evening.¹⁷ Earlier that day, however, Kissinger had informed Halperin that he was considered a potential leaker, and the two men agreed that Halperin’s access to classified information should be curtailed in order to allay suspicions.¹⁸ Three other private telephones were wiretapped in the attempt to find the source of the May 9 article.¹⁹

The following day FBI officials and Colonel Alexander Haig, Kissinger’s assistant, worked out procedures to conduct the surveillance “with no record maintained” in normal FBI files.²⁰ The Bureau then formally requested wiretap authorization from the Attorney General. With respect to Halperin, the FBI memorandum stated only:

Halperin, aged 30, was detailed from the Department of Defense to the National Security Council as a senior staff member on January 21, 1969. He was the subject of an applicant-type investigation by the Bureau. While admittedly he has had contact with Soviet nationals the investigation did not disclose at that time any pertinent derogatory information.

Footnotes

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[21]

Attorney General Mitchell approved the wiretap.²²

The FBI agents conducting the surveillance compiled summaries of the overheard conversations, but neither preserved the tapes of the conversations nor attempted to minimize overhearing of personal discussions.²³ Despite observations by the FBI in May and June of 1969 that the Halperin tap was not producing evidence of a leak,²⁴ Kissinger requested that the taps be continued.²⁵ On July 8, 1969 the FBI recommended ending some of the electronic surveillance of suspected leakers, including Halperin.²⁶ On September 15 Kissinger requested termination of all wiretaps except Halperin’s and one other.²⁷ Four days later Halperin resigned from the NSC staff, although at Kissinger’s request he continued as a consultant to the Council.²⁸

Halperin retained his consultant position until May 1970, but had no access to classified information during that period, and worked only one day for the NSC.²⁹ The wiretap remained in place. Nor was there any reduction in surveillance when he resigned from his consultant position in protest over the American invasion of Cambodia in May 1970. After that resignation, however, the FBI reports on the wiretap were no longer sent to the National Security Adviser, but went to Haldeman, the President’s chief administrative aide.³⁰ In July 1970 the FBI agent in charge of the wiretap suggested to his superior that the surveillance be lifted,³¹ but it continued until February 10, 1971.³²

Plaintiffs cite FBI logs showing that agents overheard more than 600 calls on the Halperin telephone, of which only 28 percent were between Halperin and people outside the family.³³ The summary letters from the FBI contain much political information, covering such topics as planned publications criticizing the nation’s Vietnam policy,³⁴ congressional lobbying on war-related legislation,³⁵ and political campaign plans, including potential opposition to President Nixon in 1972.³⁶ There is some evidence that the political information was valued at the White House. Disclosure in one of the Halperin summary letters that a former cabinet officer planned a magazine article opposing the Nixon Administration’s foreign policy served as the basis for a planned “counter-attack” to the anticipated article.³⁷ The FBI summaries revealed no evidence suggesting that Halperin was leaking classified data.³⁸

The records of the Halperin wiretap were minimal. At first the FBI logs were kept at the Bureau in special files, where Kis singer and Haig reviewed them.³⁹ Subsequently summary letters were sent to Kissinger, Nixon (through presidential counsel John Ehrlichman), and occasionally Mitchell.⁴⁰ As noted above, after May 1970 only Haldeman received the letters. When the surveillance was terminated the records were stored in a White House safe. The wiretap program first came to public attention in the 1973 espionage trial of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, when the Government admitted that Ellsberg had been overheard by the FBI on Halperin’s home telephone.⁴¹ This suit was filed in June 1973, within a month of that disclosure.

II. INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS AND NATIONAL SECURITY

This case presents the conflict between the Government’s need to act decisively to safeguard the nation’s security and those individual rights that are implicated in any surveillance situation.⁴² In such a case we must carefully consider any impact that our decision might have on the nation’s ability to defend itself and its vital interests. Equally, as the Supreme Court has said, “It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties * * * which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.”⁴³ Because of the significance of the competing interests at stake, we wish to consider their relationship before addressing the particular claims here.

Plaintiffs assert two intertwined constellations of personal rights: those revolving around privacy interests and those growing out of the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of speech, press, association, and belief. The damage to privacy caused by Fourth Amendment violations was captured by Justice Brandéis’ dissent in Olmstead v. United States:⁴⁴

[The Framers of the Constitution] conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. * * *

The First Amendment buttresses the individual’s protection against indiscriminate or unreasonable wiretapping. Such surveillance invades the citizen’s constitutionally protected right to free private discussion,⁴⁵ and must inevitably chill public speech. Either result is intolerable.

In recent years both the Supreme Court⁴⁶ and Congress⁴⁷ have recognized the substantial injury to personal rights caused by unreasonable electronic surveillance. Although the technology of investigation has developed dramatically in the last century, the dangers of unwarranted governmental intrusion into citizens’ private lives have not changed since Justice Bradley wrote in Boyd v. United States : ⁴⁸

It is not the breaking of [a man’s] doors, and the rummaging of his drawers, that constitutes the essence of the offence; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty and private property * * *. * *

Without vigilant protection of a private space in which each citizen is free to pursue his own ideas and aspirations, we would betray our vision of a society based on the dignity of the individual.

The question presented by this case is when may these constitutional rights be overborne by the Executive to protect the security of the entire nation. Unfortunately, the inherent vagueness of the term “national security” hampers careful analysis.⁴⁹ All would agree that the term includes situations where the very existence of the Government is in jeopardy, but consensus may break down beyond such clear instances.

The Supreme Court has taken an extremely narrow view of the circumstances in which the Executive may exercise extraordinary powers under the Constitution. In Mitchell v. Harmony⁵⁰ the Court restricted the military’s power to convert to its own use private property in a theatre of war.

[T]he danger must be immediate and impending; or the necessity urgent for the public service, such as will not admit of delay, and where the action of the civil authority would be too late in providing the means which the occasion calls for * * * * * * [51]

This attitude was echoed in decisions striking down martial law in Indiana in 1864 ⁵² and in Hawaii in 1943.⁵³ In both cases the Supreme Court ruled that normal judicial processes may be superseded only when “foreign invasion” or “civil war” physically close the courthouses.⁵⁴ Similarly, in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer⁵⁵ the Court found no basis in the Constitution for the President’s seizure of steel mills during a wartime labor dispute, despite the President’s claim that the war effort would be crippled if the mills were shut down.⁵⁶ Justice Jackson observed on that occasion that, because the drafters of the Constitution “suspected that emergency powers would tend to kindle emergencies,” they “made no express provision for exercise of extraordinary authority because of a crisis.” ⁵⁷

The Supreme Court’s steadfast refusal to expand its view of emergency powers reflects an appreciation of the consequences of any national security exception to the usual constitutional limits on Executive conduct. The Court has not denied the reality of dangers from foreign or internal conflicts. Rather, it has recognized the need to respect constitutional requirements even in troubled times. Security interests may be affected by fluctuations in international trade and the supply of natural resources, by social unrest at home and abroad, and by public disclosure of policy deliberations. But such events cannot routinely justify invasions of privacy or restrictions on expression without devaluing and eventually destroying those rights.

We believe, therefore, that whatever special powers the Executive may hold in national security situations must be limited to instances of immediate and grave peril to the nation. Absent such exigent circumstances, there can be no appeal to powers beyond those enumerated in the Constitution or provided by law.⁵⁸ Any security from one danger purchased with our individual rights would be but an illusion, for its price would be those protections against all other threats to our liberty.

III. TITLE III AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

Standards for evaluating the legality of this electronic surveillance derive from the Constitution and from Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.⁵⁹ The Government has conceded that the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures applied to national security wiretaps in 1969,⁶⁰ but disputes the application of the Amendment’s judicial warrant requirement.⁶¹ The Keith Court observed that “the definition of ‘reasonableness’ turns, at least in part, on the more specific commands of the warrant clause,”⁶² but warrantless searches have been approved in “certain carefully defined classes of cases.”⁶³ Thus we must acknowledge that the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement may not always apply, while a reasonableness standard may vary in different situations.⁶⁴ In contrast, Title III bans most electronic surveillance and specifies procedures for wiretapping and eavesdropping in particular situations; but the statute expressly does not limit the President’s constitutional power to wiretap in national security situations.⁶⁵ Although the mandate of the statute is more precise, the reach of the constitutional provision may be seen as greater.⁶⁶

To gauge the propriety of the Halperin surveillance under the overlapping constitutional and statutory standards, we must review the circumstances of the wiretapping and its connection to reasonable national security concerns.⁶⁷ If that connection is remote, or the supposed national security concerns ephemeral, we must remand to the District Court for a determination whether Title III should be applied; where the professed national security issues appear valid, we must still insist on compliance with the Fourth Amendment. We will first consider the applicability of Title III and then examine the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.

A

Title III was designed to limit Government use of electronic surveillance techniques. According to the Supreme Court, the statute and legislative history “evince[ ] the clear intent to make doubly sure that the statutory authority be used with restraint and only where the circumstances warrant the surreptitious interception of wire and oral communications.”⁶⁸ This court has observed that “[t]he Act’s essential purpose * * * was to combine a limited and carefully articulated grant of power to intercept communications with an elaborate set of safeguards to deter abuse and to expunge its effects in the event that it should occur.”⁶⁹

The statute is straightforward. Section 2511 bans all electronic surveillance not authorized by Title III, with three exceptions not relevant to this case.⁷⁰ Surveillance is permitted for investigation of “classes of crimes carefully specified in 18 U.S.C. § 2516,”⁷¹ so long as stringent procedural requirements are satisfied.⁷² The statute provides for civil as well as criminal prosecution of violators, with minimum civil damages set at $100 for each day of violation, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees.⁷³ A good faith defense is available to Government officials sued under Title III, as we discuss in detail in Part IV of this opinion.

The applicability of Title III to the Halperin wiretap hinges on Section 2511(3), which enumerates five national security situations in which surveillance would not be covered by the statute. This provision, as the Keith Court held, is an “expression of congressional neutrality" on national security surveillances:

[NJothing in § 2511(3) was intended to expand or to contract or to define whatever presidential surveillance powers existed in matters affecting the national security. * * * [74]

Hence, if a surveillance falls under Section 2511(3), it is still subject to constitutional limitations, but not to Title Ill’s requirements and prohibitions.

Only one of the five circumstances listed in Section 2511(3) might apply to this case: That nothing in Title III “shall limit the constitutional power of the President * * to protect national security information against foreign intelligence activities.”⁷⁵ We face an initial problem in applying this provision to the instant case, since there was never any allegation that the Halperins were directly connected to “foreign intelligence activities.” Although it is surely possible for vital secrets to be revealed through a leak to the press, both courts and Congress have looked for a direct link between the wiretap target and a foreign interest as a justification for surveillance.⁷⁶ In the absence of such a connection, we must closely scrutinize the validity of the national security rationale.⁷⁷

The District Court declined to apply Title III because of “the indisputable difficulties and ambiguities presented by § 2511(3).”

In view of the confused state of the law and the 30-year history of similar [warrantless national security wiretaps] * *, the Court finds that defendants’ determination that Title III was inapplicable to the Halperin wiretap was reasonable during the period of surveillance. * * *[78]

This statement conflates the standards for a good faith defense with the applicability of Title III,⁷⁹ and reflects a fundamental misapprehension of the Halperins’ position. They argue that the wiretap was not related to national security, and thus was subject to the substantive and procedural terms of Title III. If they are correct in their first contention, the second is incontestable. The “30-year history” of warrant-less national security wiretaps could not affect the applicability of Title III to non-national security surveillances. Consequently, the proper inquiry for the District Court was whether the surveillance challenged here was a valid national security action.⁸⁰ To the extent that it was not, any uncertainty about the meaning of Section 2511(3) at the time of the wiretapping would be relevant only to the question of the defendants’ official immunity to suit. As a result, we must reverse the grant of summary judgment on the statutory claim and remand for a determination by the District Court of whether the surveillance was reasonably intended to guard national security data from foreign intelligence agencies.

In this framework we see little evidence before us for classifying the surveillance from May 1970 to February 1971 as a national security action not reached by Title III. During those nine months Halperin had no official connection with the Government, and, in fact, had lacked access to much classified information for the preced ing year;⁸¹ a continuous, year-long wiretap had revealed no evidence that he was a leaker; and the reports on the wiretap were not sent to Kissinger, the President’s National Security Adviser, but to Haldeman, a political and administrative adviser. Moreover, since Halperin had almost no official contact with the National Security Council from September 1969 to May 1970, the national security basis for surveillance during those nine months would seem almost equally attenuated. Finally, plaintiffs have raised questions about the purported national security nexus even at the beginning of the wiretap. Halperin claims that the surveillance was initiated for political reasons stemming from his connection to previous administrations.⁸² He points to letters from Senator Goldwater to President Nixon and to Attorney General Mitchell recommending his ouster,⁸³ as well as to Kissinger’s apparent request on June 4, 1969 that the surveillance be continued to establish “a pattern of innocence.”⁸⁴ These events suggest, Halperin argues, that he was initially targeted for surveillance in order to bolster within the Nixon Administration the political credibility of Kissinger’s staff appointments.

On remand the District Court must address all of these contentions. Title III will apply to any period during which the wiretap did not involve the primary purpose of protecting national security information against foreign intelligence activities. Where the parties have posed genuine issues of material fact, the court will have to undertake an evidentiary inquiry. Summary proceedings should be limited to those instances where the record before the court indicates no such issue.⁸⁵

B

Throughout the 21 months of the Halperin wiretap the defendants in this case were under an obligation to comply with both the reasonableness and the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment. The District Court found that at some point during the surveillance the wiretap

developed into a dragnet which lacked temporal and spatial limitation. It represent[ed] the antithesis of the “particular, precise, and discriminate” procedures required by the Supreme Court in numerous Fourth Amendment cases. * * *[86]

Although we agree that the surveillance did not satisfy the reasonableness standard, we must remand for consideration both of the warrant question and of when the wiretap became unreasonable. In addition, we cannot affirm the award of $1 nominal damages for the constitutional violations established here.

1. When the Supreme Court first applied the warrant provision of the Fourth Amendment to wiretapping in 1967, it expressly reserved the question of prior judicial approval of national security surveillances.⁸⁷ In Keith, however, the Court found that a warrant was necessary before a domestic target deemed a threat to national security could be wiretapped, and in Zweibon I this court ruled that a warrant was needed to wiretap a domestic group that may be concerned with foreign affairs but “that is not the agent of or acting in collaboration with a foreign power * *.” ⁸⁸ At the root of these decisions was the conviction that prior judicial approval of wiretapping for national security matters, absent exigent circumstances, falls within the competence of the judiciary,⁸⁹ poses no additional threat to national security,⁹⁰ and provides a valuable check on Executive discretion.⁹¹

For the reasons articulated in our opinion today in Zweibon v. Mitchell (Zweibon III),92 we conclude that a warrant was required for the Halperin wiretap in May 1969. The reasoning of both Keith and Zweibon I, which dealt with wiretaps initiated during the same period, applies with equal force to this situation, and there is no basis for limiting those cases to prospective effect. The District Court in the instant case “[a]ssum[ed] arguendo” that defendants were not subject to the warrant requirement, although it is not clear from that opinion whether the assumption was based on retroactivity considerations or defendants’ possible immunity from suit.⁹³ In any event, such an assumption for purposes of argument is no substitute for a specific holding by the District Court. Of course, the defendants may be able to make out an immunity defense by arguing that due to uncertainty in the law on the warrant requirement there were reasonable grounds in 1969 for their failure to acquire a warrant, and that they did not act in bad faith.⁹⁴ This is a distinct question, however, from whether the Fourth Amendment mandated a warrant.

2. As we discussed above, we believe that Title III most likely should apply to at least part of the period of the Halperin surveillance. Nevertheless, for any period during which the District Court concludes that the surveillance was genuinely based on national security concerns, the wiretap might still have violated the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard.⁹⁵ The duration or conduct of the surveillance might well be deemed to have been unreasonable in view of the likely product of the wiretap, especially after the initial period. In that event, the trial court would have to establish the time span of that constitution al violation in order to determine damages.⁹⁶

3. Damage suits for the vindication of individual rights date from the eighteenth century in England ⁹⁷ and have been widely recognized in our courts.⁹⁸ The Supreme Court stated in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, “[Djamages have been regarded as the ordinary remedy for an invasion of personal interests in liberty.”⁹⁹ The instant suit is squarely within this tradition, and the Halperins are “entitled to recover money damages for any injuries [they have] suffered as a result of the * * * violation of the [Fourth] Amendment.” ¹⁰⁰

Even if a constitutional violation inflicts only intangible injury, compensation is still appropriate. In Patón v. LaPrade the Third Circuit enumerated many of the intangible injuries that might have been suffered by a student unreasonably investigated by the FBI; “stigmatization, invasion of privacy, interference with personality development, and interference with her freedom of association through the decision of others to shun her.”¹⁰¹ This approach has been followed by other circuits in suits alleging constitutional violations by state officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1976).¹⁰²

Due to the plaintiffs’ reliance on a “presumption” of injury in requesting a damage award, the District Court concluded that there was “no demonstrable injury.” ¹⁰³ We think that conclusion neglected the possibility that plaintiffs might show loss due to emotional distress and mental anguish, traditional bases for tort recovery. Such harm might be demonstrated through direct testimony of the plaintiffs or might be “inferred from the circumstances,”¹⁰⁴ and if established would surely entitle the Halperins to more than nominal recovery. This court has held that in cases involving constitutional rights, compensation “should not be approached in a niggardly spirit. It is in the public interest that there be a reasonably spacious approach to a fair compensatory award for denial or curtailment of the right * * ¹⁰⁵ Specifying such damages will always be difficult, but they must be at least “an amount which will assure [the plaintiff] that [personal] rights are not lightly to be disregarded and that they can be truly vindicated in the courts.” ¹⁰⁶

IY. THE IMMUNITY DEFENSE

All individual defendants claim an absolute immunity from civil damage suits for actions undertaken in their official capacities. The District Court rejected these claims, and we agree with that ruling. Defendants, including former President Nixon, are entitled to a qualified immunity on both the Fourth Amendment and the Title III claims if they can show that they had reasonable grounds for believing their actions were legal (the “objective” basis) and that there was no malice or bad faith in either the initiation or the conduct of the wiretapping (the “subjective” basis).¹⁰⁷ Because former President Nixon advances particular arguments in support of his own absolute immunity, we will consider his status separately.

A

Officials making adjudicative and prosecutorial decisions are absolutely immune from civil suit based on such actions. This doctrine assumes that the initiation of a prosecution and the resolution of a dispute are especially likely to incite individualized wrath,¹⁰⁸ and that the review processes of the judicial system provide an automatic safeguard against improper actions.¹⁰⁹ Absolute immunity is not available, however, for those same officials for acts not involving adjudication or prosecution.¹¹⁰

In Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 98 S.Ct. 2894, 57 L.Ed.2d 895 (1978), the Supreme Court outlined two bases for qualifying the immunity from suit enjoyed by Executive officials: (1) without such qualification the damage actions contemplated by Bivens would be “drained of meaning” and many constitutional violations would go un remedied;¹¹¹ and (2) since state officials may be held liable for such violations,¹¹² it would “stand the constitutional design on its head” if the courts established “a system in which the Bill of Rights monitors more closely the conduct of state officials than it does that of federal officials * * *.”¹¹³

The Economou Court adopted for federal officials the objective and subjective standards for qualified immunity of Wood v. Strickland:¹¹⁴

[An official is] not immune * * * [A] if he knew or reasonably should have known that the action he took * * * would violate the constitutional rights of the [person] affected, or [B] if he took the action with the malicious intention to cause a deprivation of constitutional rights or other injury ***.***

We stress that only one of these two standards need be satisfied in order for a defendant to lose his immunity from suit.¹¹⁵

To reduce the potential for harassment of Executive officials, the Supreme Court has recommended resolution of the immunity issue, when possible, on summary judgment.¹¹⁶ This course is best suited for handling the objective basis for qualified immunity. Courts should be able to determine at the pretrial stage whether there is a genuine issue of material fact as to the reasonableness of a defendant’s belief that he was acting legally. On the subjective criterion — which “turns on officials’ knowledge and good faith belief” ¹¹⁷ —summary action may be more difficult. Questions of intent and subjective attitude frequently cannot be resolved without direct testimony of those involved.¹¹⁸ Nevertheless, in view of the Supreme Court’s emphasis on the importance of summary; procedures in suits like this one, District; Courts must carefully examine any pretrial-claim by a defendant that a plaintiff has; not raised a genuine issue of material fact as to defendant’s subjective good faith.¹¹⁹ Should the court conclude on the record before it that the defendant is not entitled to a judgment as a matter of law,¹²⁰ the court must move beyond summary procedures.¹²¹ At trial defendants would have to establish their subjective good faith as an affirmative defense.¹²²

As to defendants Mitchell and Haldeman, the District Court found “their activities relating to the wiretap continuance unreasonable.” ¹²³ On the subjective claim, the court noted:

The evidence here reflects a twenty-one month wiretap continuance without fruits or evidence of wrongdoing, a failure to renew or evaluate the material obtained, a lack of records and procedural compliance, a seemingly political motive for the later surveillance and dissemination of reports, and an apparent effort to conceal the wiretap documents.[124]

The District Court also applied the objective standard, finding that the defendants violated the Fourth Amendment, and, “P]ike any other citizen, these officials are charged with knowledge of established law and must be held accountable for personal misconduct.”¹²⁵

We find no basis for disturbing these rulings. Certainly there were no reasonable grounds for believing that the continuing surveillance was in accord with the Constitution, and the record contains ample support for the trial court’s ruling on bad faith. Under the terms of our remand, however, the District Court will also have to consider any claim by defendants that they are immune from liability for their failure to acquire a warrant for the wiretap, a question which the District Court has not directly addressed.¹²⁶ In a complex case like this one, the District Court must undertake a particularized inquiry into the immunity available for each alleged type or period of constitutional or statutory violation in order to safeguard both the individual rights asserted by the Halperins and the freedom of Executive officials to act.

B

In order to accept defendant Nixon’s argument that he, as a former President, is absolutely immune from this suit, we would have to hold that his status as President sets him apart from the other high Executive officials named as defendants to this action. Such a distinction would have to rest on a determination ei ther that the Constitution impliedly exempts the President from all liability in cases like this or that the repercussions of finding liability would be drastically adverse. Because we are unable to make that distinction, we do not believe he is entitled to absolute immunity to a damage action by a citizen subjected to an unconstitutional or illegal wiretap.

1. The constitutional scheme betrays no indication that any kind of immunity was intended for the President or the Executive Branch. While congressmen enjoy the privileges of the Speech and Debate Clause of Article I,¹²⁷

[t]he Constitution makes no mention of special presidential immunities. Indeed, the Executive Branch generally is afforded none. This silence cannot be ascribed to oversight. * * * [128]

In addition, there are indications that the Constitutional convention was presented with the question of Executive privileges and chose not to grant any.¹²⁹ The Convention did specify, however, that an impeached President may still be tried in the courts for any offense.¹³⁰

By contemplating the possibility of post-impeachment trials for violations of law committed in office, the Impeachment Clause itself reveals that incumbency does not relieve the President of the routine legal obligations that confine all citizens. * * * [131]

2. The doctrine of separation of powers wisely counsels the judiciary to act with care when reviewing actions by other branches, but the courts may not evade their constitutional responsibility to delineate the obligations and powers of each branch. Thus, although courts lack power to grant injunctive relief against prospective presidential actions that may be discretionary,¹³² Presidents are scarcely immune from judicial process. Courts have intervened in defense of congressional lawmaking prerogatives to block improper presidential exercise of emergency powers ¹³³ and to assert the President’s duty to execute mandatory legislative instructions.¹³⁴ They have also ordered production of presidential documents needed for orderly functioning of the criminal justice system.¹³⁵ Clearly, a proper regard for separation of powers does not require that the courts meekly avert their eyes from presidential excesses while invoking a sterile view of three branches of government entirely insulated from each other.¹³⁶ Such an abdication of the judicial role would sap the vitality of the constitutional rights whose protection is entrusted to the judiciary.

3. We also find no basis for absolute presidential immunity on what might be termed prudential grounds. We do not believe that any inhibiting effect such suits might have on the presidential will to act should hinder effective governance of the nation. To some extent, of course, the denial of absolute immunity is intended to affect Executive behavior that threatens to violate constitutional rights. We believe, however, that suits that may successfully be pursued against a President will be quite rare.¹³⁷ And if we are serious about providing a remedy for constitutional violations, there can be no rational basis, as the Economou Court emphasized, for holding inferior

officials liable for constitutional violations while immunizing those higher up.

Indeed, the greater power of such [higher] officials affords a greater potential for a regime of lawless conduct. Extensive Government operations offer opportunities for unconstitutional action on a massive scale. * * * [138]

In addition, the doctrine of qualified immunity, as elaborated by the Supreme Court in Seheuer v. Rhodes and by this court in Apton v. Wilson, makes allowance for the additional demands on the time and attention of a Chief Executive.¹³⁹ The President, like all citizens, must be held to know the relevant law, but he “may be entitled to consult fewer sources and expend less effort inquiring into the circumstances of a localized problem.”¹⁴⁰ This sliding scale would apply with even greater force if the President were acting in an emergency situation. The President would lose his immunity only if plaintiffs could show that he acted with “actual malice”¹⁴¹ or that he failed to meet a statutory or constitutional obligation that was clear under the circumstances as understood at the time.¹⁴² Under this approach plaintiffs would have substantial difficulty in defeating a President’s claim of immunity, an outcome that helps satisfy our concern that suits like this one would place major and unwarranted demands on a President’s time. In considering the case to be made out by plaintiffs before trial,¹⁴³ District Courts should be sensitive to the extraordinary practical difficulties confronting a President who is charged in such a suit.¹⁴⁴

4. We do not think that the personal burden on the President of having to answer civil suits like this one is so great as to justify absolute immunity. Like other Executive officials, he is represented by the Government if he is sued for his official actions,¹⁴⁵ and there seems to be no basis for greater solicitude for the personal finances of a President ordered to pay damages for his constitutional violations than for a governor or a cabinet officer.¹⁴⁶

Finally, we think the application of qualified immunity to defendant Nixon is mandated by our tradition of equal justice under law. The President is the elected chief executive of our government, not an omniscient leader cloaked in mystical powers. This court has observed that “[sovereignty remains at all times with the people, and they do not forfeit through elections the right to have the law construed against and applied to every citizen.” ¹⁴⁷ The Supreme Court noted this truth in Economou when it quoted from United States v. Lee:¹⁴⁸

“No man in this country is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at defiance with impunity. All officers of the government, from the highest to the least, are creatures of the law, and are bound to obey it.t[149]

V. KISSINGER’S SUMMARY JUDGMENT MOTION

The District Court granted summary judgment in favor of defendant Kissinger on the ground that he played an “inactive role” in the surveillance and lacked “oversight authority.”¹⁵⁰ We think this ruling was error, since plaintiffs raised genuine issues of material fact as to Kissinger’s role in the installation and maintenance of the wiretap.¹⁵¹ They demonstrated that Kissinger was involved to some extent in the decision to initiate a surveillance program,¹⁵² that he monitored the product of the surveillance for a full year,¹⁵³ and that on at least one occasion he directly requested continuation of the Halperin tap.¹⁵⁴

We, of course, intimate no suggestion as to Kissinger’s liability, but only hold that plaintiffs made a sufficient showing as to his supervisory role to survive a motion for summary judgment.

Accordingly, the judgment of the District Court is reversed and this case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

1

. The defendants were President Richard Nixon, former Attorney General John Mitchell, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, presidential aides H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlich-man, Alexander Haig and Jeb Magruder, FBI Director Clarence Kelley and FBI official William Sullivan, and Assistant Attorney General Robert Mardian. The suit also named the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company (C&P) as a defendant, but plaintiffs do not appeal the District Court’s judgment in favor of C&P. Joining Halperin in the complaint were his wife, Ina, and their three minor children.

2

. The investigation eventually included electronic surveillance of 13 Government employees and four newspaper reporters, including the appellant in a case we also decide today, Smith v. Nixon, 196 U.S.Ápp.D.C.-, 606 F.2d 1183 (1979).

3

. Pub.L.No.90-351, 82 Stat. 212 (1968) (codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520 (1976)).

4

. Halperin v. Kissinger, 424 F.Supp. 838 (D.D. C.1976).

5

. Halperin v. Kissinger, 434 F.Supp. 1193 (D.D. C.1977). If the court had found Title III applicable, plaintiffs would have been entitled to $100 in liquidated damages for each day of illegal wiretapping, plus punitive damages and attorney fees. See 18 U.S.C. § 2520 (1976).

6

. Because both sides appeal the decision of the District Court, it is easier to identity the parties by their status in the trial court, in order to avoid confusion among appellants, cross-appellants, and the like. We refer to the Halperins as plaintiffs and Nixon, Mitchell, Haldeman, and Kissinger as defendants.

7

. In response to interrogatories Kissinger listed 20 newspaper articles between February 3, 1969 and May 6, 1969 that in his opinion were based on leaked information. Joint Appendix (JA) 129-132.

8

. Nixon Deposition at 18-22, 25-26; Mitchell Deposition at 20-21.

9

. Mitchell Deposition at 76-79, 81-85; Nixon Deposition at 19-21.

10

. Nixon Deposition at 61; Kissinger Deposition at 28. On these facts the District Court concluded that President Nixon “authorized a program of electronic surveillance of individuals suspected of leaking information detrimental to the national defense and foreign policy of the United States.” Halperin v. Kissinger, supra note 4, 424 F.Supp. at 840.

11

. See Chronology of Events Relative to the Seventeen Wiretaps and Pertinent Documents, in Dr. Kissinger’s Role in Wiretapping: Hearings Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 22-23 (1974) (hereinafter cited as Kissinger Hearings).

12

. Raids in Cambodia by U.S. Go Unprotested, N.Y. Times, May 9, 1969, at 1, col. 3.

13

. Nixon Deposition at 23; Kissinger Deposition at 50.

14

. Halperin Affidavit (Nov. 12, 1973), JA 102.

15

. Kissinger Deposition at 48-49. Hoover alleged that Halperin had been a roommate of the reporter who wrote the story, Id. Two other items in Halperin’s files were deemed to raise questions about his reliability: (1) failure to report in a 1966 Department of Defense form that he had stopped in Greece, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union on á previous round-the-world journey; and (2) incorrect identification of a Russian national with whom he lunched in 1967. JA 241-244; see Kissinger Hearings, supra note 11, at 182 (testimony of H. Kissinger) (blanks in testimony filled in by answers to interrogatories at JA 133). Halperin attributed the first omission to clerical oversight and the second to his error. JA 219-221. An internal FBI memorandum from Hoover identified Halperin as agreeing to a 1965 proposal for a national sit-in on the Vietnam War, as having subscribed to a Marxist publication, and as being a “so-called arrogant harvard-type [sic] Kennedy” man. JA 49-50. For a discussion of Halperin’s allegation that he was singled out for surveillance for political reasons, see text accompanying notes 82-84 infra.

16

. Chronology, in Kissinger Hearings, supra note 11, at 23.

17

. Id. at 80 (testimony of J. Adams, Deputy Associate Director of FBI).

18

. Halperin Affidavit, supra note 14, JA 102-103; Kissinger Deposition at 58-59.

19

. Memorandum from W. C. Sullivan to C. D. DeLoach (May 11, 1969), JA 51.

20

. Id.

21. Memorandum from J. E. Hoover to Attorney General (May 12, 1969), JA 52.