The Chief Justice did give two examples, as a kind of playbook for Trump and the people behind Project 2025. The two things he mentions that for sure fall within the absolute can’t investigate/question/use as evidence/prosecute “official” acts are:
- pardons (they may pardon anyone for anything for any price)
- command their Attorney General (DOJ) - which they can then use #1 to cover them for any illegal requests they carry out
You forgot “use the military”.
That’s it. Use the military in any way and it’s official. Have Seal Team 6 murder your opponents, and it’s official. Drop a 2000lbs bomb on the political convention of your opponents, and it’s offical.
What Roberts didn’t do, was say what counts as unofficial. He spent a bunch of time listing out times when the president is completely immune from prosecution, and not a single sentence for when he can be prosecuted.
Mostly because he couldn’t think of any, Not a one because he wants Trump to be the next king.
Roberts did not list the military as one of the “official acts” that would be immune, because Trump doesn’t need the military yet to stay out of jail. The list was a blue print to keeping Trump out of jail should he win the election. The military would however likely fall under what the majority of the SCOTUS would call an action that would have “presumed immunity”, but they really left that up to the SCOTUS to decide on a case by case basis (aka does it help Trump or one of the Justice’s “friends”).
Commanding the military is one of the examples Roberts gave as an always Official act that comes with complete immunity. It was talked about very briefly in the decision, and expanded upon in the dissents because the dissents pointed out that using seal team 6 to kill Americans is now completely legal.
#2 is because, in the election interference case against Trump, one piece of evidence being used by the prosecution is that Trump instructed his Attorney General to send letters alleging that mass voter fraud was found to several state election officials, despite knowing that claim was false.
SCOTUS essentially ruled that even if that action could be considered a crime, Trump is immune from punishment since it’s an “official act”.