>> From WXXI.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in January of 2001.

In the final days of the Clinton presidency.

The outgoing Bill Clinton pardoned a billionaire commodities trader named Marc Rich.

Rich had fled to Switzerland to avoid prosecution for illegal oil deals with Iran, as well as tax evasion.

But he had a connection to the president.

Rich's ex-wife had made big donations to Democratic campaigns and the Clinton Library.

And the deal immediately looked like a quid pro quo, or at least a reward for the money.

President Clinton denied this, but of course he would deny it.

The rich pardon marked a kind of turning point in presidential pardons.

Over the decades, presidents have routinely pardoned hundreds or even thousands of people.

But look at the list of the most controversial pardons before Clinton Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, George H.W.

Bush pardons the Iran-Contra officials.

Jimmy Carter Carter pardons Vietnam War draft evaders.

Andrew Johnson pardons the Confederates.

Until Clinton, the controversies were about whether the pardons were justified for the country.

With Marc Rich, it became about the use or abuse of presidential pardons for friends or family members or donors.

Nearly 25 years later, the use of presidential pardons for friends and family and donors has exploded.

President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, claiming that Hunter would become a victim of political retribution.

Biden pardoned his siblings and their spouses as well.

And now President Trump has taken pardons to a whole new level, starting with the mass pardon of January 6th.

Rioters, a number of whom have already been arrested for other crimes since their pardons.

Trump has praised their loyalty.

Trump recently pardoned one of the biggest figures in the cryptocurrency industry, a billionaire felon who, as CBS News put it, was prosecuted for allowing his company to be used as a platform to finance criminal activity to send money to terrorist organizations.

Al Qaeda, Hamas and I.S.I.S.

So why did Changpeng Zhao get a pardon from Trump?

Well, over the past year, Zhao has decided to support the Trump family's new crypto enterprise, and it appears that Zhao helped get $2 billion to prop up the enterprise.

One of the top D.C.

lawyers who vets pardons at the Justice Department quit.

When Zhao got the pardon he was asking for.

And then last week, President Trump, who said he wants to wage war on drug cartels, announced a pardon for the former president of Honduras, who had said that he wanted to flood the United States with cocaine.

Axios says, quote, from a U.S.

prison cell Honduras ex-president secured a pardon for drug trafficking thanks to a letter he penned praising President Trump, whom he called your Excellency, and a persistent lobbying campaign by longtime Trump pal Roger Stone.

End quote.

All of that has convinced some legal scholars to raise the idea of eliminating or reforming the presidential pardon process, and that would be a massive change, of course, the corruption of pardons is our topic this hour with our guests, and I will welcome them.

Now, going around the room, retired New York State Supreme Court Justice John Ark is back with us.

Judge, welcome.

Thanks for being here.

>> Well, thank you for having having us back.

>> Across the table.

Welcome to Richard Dollinger retired New York State Court of Claims judge.

Judge, thanks for being back with us.

>> Thank you.

Evan.

We brought the band back together.

>> You certainly did.

And one of the band leaders is Thomas VanStrydonck retired New York State Supreme Court justice.

Judge, welcome back to you.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you.

I want to start by listening to some of what President Trump himself has said about one of those controversial pardons.

CBS News Norah O'Donnell sat down with the president a few weeks ago to ask about pardoning a crypto billionaire who's record wasn't even really debated up until that.

Pardon?

That surprised a lot of people.

Let's listen to the conversation.

>> This is a question about pardons.

The Trump family is now perhaps more associated with cryptocurrency than real estate.

You and your sons, Don Jr.

and Eric, have formed World Liberty Financial with the Witkoff family helping to make your family millions of dollars.

It's in that context that I do want to ask you about.

Crypto's richest man, a billionaire known as KSI.

He pled guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws.

The government at the time said that KSI had caused significant harm to U.S.

national security, essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around.

Why did you pardon him?

>> Okay.

Are you ready?

I don't know who he is.

I know he got a four month sentence or something like that.

And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.

>> In 2025.

His crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin.

And then you pardoned KSI.

How do you address the appearance of pay for play?

>> Well, here's the thing.

I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other.

But I can only tell you that.

I can only tell you this.

My sons are into it.

I'm glad they are, because it's probably a great industry.

Crypto.

I think it's good.

You know, they're running a business.

They're not in government, and they're good.

My one son is the number one best seller.

Now.

My wife just had a number one best seller.

I'm proud of them for doing that.

I'm focused on this.

I know nothing about the guy other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government.

>> All right, judge Van Strydonck, does that sell you on that?

Pardon?

>> Well, he's got the right to do it.

Does it sell me on it?

Is it the right thing to do?

No, it does not.

why?

He knows nothing about the person he's going to pardon is beyond me.

you would think he would at least want to know something more about this person.

But no, it doesn't convince me that it's done correctly.

But he's got the power to do it.

>> Judge Dollinger, what did you hear there?

>> evasion.

you immediately ask someone a question about why did you do something?

And they talk about their sons and their wife and their accomplishments.

And then he adds at the end, I have no idea who the guy is.

I frankly don't believe that I, I couldn't for the life of me, given the nexus between someone's massive, infusion of cash into a company associated with the president, for him to stand there and say, I don't know who the guy is and I don't know what's going on.

I did it because someone.

>> Or my sons told me.

>> Yeah, did what?

My son told me.

I just don't buy it.

I it doesn't persuade me that it's a true exercise of what the pardon power was designed to do.

>> Judge arc.

>> Well, you know, the when you look into the history of pardons, there's good reason to have the chief executive or have this power.

But when you look at the history of particularly in the last 10 or 15 years, it's really gotten to be a not, not a function.

So much of carrying out good government and being the chief executive, but it's almost become highly personal in the, in the the pardons that are being handed out.

So Trump's probably is culpable.

That is, is Biden was is Clinton was so but they've really gotten far away from the intent of of a pardon.

>> So do you agree?

Judge Dellinger, with the way that I was reading the history there, that of course, there are going to be pardons that are controversial and there have been.

But it it took on this change with Marc Rich.

Is that a fair turning point to you?

>> I think it is.

I think Bill Clinton and there was always a story that he did it in the last three days he was president, that he was in this power high of having to give up his his claim to be the chief executive of the United States, and that he went on a binge and people approached him, and he was willing to sign off on virtually anything.

The Marc Rich pardon, in my judgment, was a serious mistake.

And it opened the door to this notion that the power of the pardon can be used for personal benefit rather than public good.

Judge Arc made the comment about, you know, it was designed to serve a public interest.

When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, he said it was to put the national nightmare behind us.

Right.

Whether you think that was the right idea or not, there was at least a a civic notion that was attached to that.

Pardon.

>> Absolutely.

>> But in the case of Marc Rich and Bill Clinton opening the door, there was no civic justification to pardon Marc Rich.

And under those circumstances, even though he had the power, I believe that was an abuse of the the pardon.

>> What did you see there with with Marc Rich?

Judge Van Strydonck.

>> Looked like a pay for play.

>> Sure did.

>> Yeah.

And I guess that's where it's gone to.

with respect to President Trump, his excuses for his pardons are.

Someone told me that this individual was railroaded, so he was railroaded.

So I'm going to pardon him.

it's the same thing with the Honduras president.

>> Yeah.

>> The Honduras people said that he was railroaded.

Well, I think he was convicted under Trump's administration the last time around.

so maybe he should have done something at that point in time.

But it's crazy.

and there doesn't seem to be any limits to it at all, except they can't pardon impeachments or nonfederal offenses.

>> You know.

>> The only thing I wanted to add, Evan, is, remember, in the case of the Honduran president, he was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for the offenses that he was charged with.

In other words, a group of his peers sat down after a lengthy public trial in which prosecutors, like two of my colleagues sitting here, were former prosecutors, the government put significant resources into convicting him.

The jury of his peers said, beyond a reasonable doubt, he is engaged in a conspiracy and inactions to flood the United States with illegal drugs and then, without serving his entire sentence or anything else, he's then gets to walk away.

I just don't understand that.

I understand the other pardons where people have served long periods of time.

We talked about this.

>> I'm with you on this.

The Honduran president, the one I'm going, what's happening behind the scenes?

I don't know, I mean, it's obvious the crypto deal is very obvious.

>> Correct.

>> The January 6th thing is very obvious.

However detestable people find it.

I don't get the Honduran president.

>> Well, but my understanding is Honduran president had praised President Trump.

>> But I mean, of course, but a lot of people have praised him.

He called him Your Excellency in a letter, which, you know, in an alternate universe where people are more sane, they would they would see right through as being obsequious and should be ignored.

However, to get a pardon I don't know, Rick.

I mean, don't you wonder if there's something else you're missing?

>> Oh, I'm convinced there is.

And and I think it depends on whose Connections the Honduran president had.

The name Roger Stone was mentioned earlier as Roger Stone being a part of it.

Stone has obvious influence over Trump.

I think there are others.

His children, his family, his members of his cabinet all have significant influence.

What what I find.

And let me just add one other thing.

We talked about this before we came on.

There's a woman named Alice Johnson.

I don't know whether you're familiar.

Alice Johnson was a convicted drug dealer charged with conspiracy to distribute drugs.

Drugs either in Tennessee or Kentucky, I can't remember.

She served 20 years of a life sentence for drugs.

And again, after conviction, after a sentence, after the whole process was concluded, Donald Trump granted her clemency first and then granted her a pardon.

And then he made her the pardon czar in Washington, D.C.

Now, we talked about this before.

There's a legitimate place for pardons for people who've served significant sentences, certainly those who were convicted of drug offenses in the 1960s and the hullabaloo of of drug crimes in the number of people who were suddenly incarceration of black men and Hispanic men.

I get all that.

And there's a basis for pardons and stuff like that.

But in these cases where they're high profile people who appear to have inside access, it's got to cast an aura of suspicion on the use of the pardon power.

>> Well, let me ask the former prosecutors, and I'll start with Judge Arc here.

When we think about the purpose of a pardon as a layperson who hasn't worked in the law, my assumption would be that the president gets this power.

for a number of reasons.

One of them being that maybe there is an opportunity to write some kind of legal wrong, but you're also putting a lot of power in the hands of one person who may or may not have studied the law themselves.

And may have their own motivations.

So if we're going to pardon for, as Rick pointed out, cases that have gone to juries, cases that have been carefully prosecuted, it invalidates the work of a lot of prosecutors.

And I would think that there has to be a very high bar for it.

Are you okay with the president having pardon power to begin with?

>> Well, interestingly, I think after what we're at now is a point where they've monetized the power of the pardon.

It's really what it boils down to.

And you can use the generic phrase monetization as broadly as you might want, but there seems to be variables involved other than what's particularly in the interests of justice.

But a judge has the basically the power to pardon, okay, at the end of a trial, the judge can set aside a conviction, a judge, and during the course of a trial, judge can throw a case out.

So on a very micro basis, we have judges have a certain amount of power.

That's the equivalent of the power to pardon.

Although a judge is obviously his actions, his her actions are reviewable by appellate courts until an appellate court reverses what the judge might have done.

It's equivalent to a pardon.

So you have you have this this power.

That's that's.

It's within the judiciary system, but it's super judicial in the sense that, as judge points out, somebody found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, which is no easy feat.

But the judge for if he or she feels the case is appropriate, can vacate that conviction and start from scratch.

>> what do you think there, Judge Van Strydonck, about whether president should have this power?

>> Well, when it was debated and put in the Constitution, it was basically brought in from the fact that kings had the power to show mercy and pardon people for crimes.

And it was a way of the executive to have a check on the judiciary, not just for righting a wrong, but also to show mercy.

If the executive thought that the sentence served was excessive.

so it's it's a power that is there to provide the checks and balance on the judiciary and the checks and balance on the executive is basically he can be impeached if the Congress feels that the, for instance, if they feel that he was selling the pardon power, they might be able to impeach him.

Is that going to happen?

No, not under the current setup of the Congress.

But that's the check and balance on the executive power.

So I don't think that it's wrong for them to have given the executive the power to pardon.

I just think that they didn't anticipate that the executive could abuse it to the to the extent that it seems to be abused in the recent history.

>> Judge Dellinger.

>> I was just going to add I wanted to supplement one thing that Judge Arc mentioned.

It's not only the judge has the power to vacate the conviction, but the judge has the ability in the sentencing process to take into account a whole series of factors that are equivalent to the pardon reducing the sentence, looking, modifying the sentence sentence based on other factors.

And to that extent, and this is where I agree with John.

The judge has a form of clemency, pardon power.

At the conclusion of a trial, even if the defendant has been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the judge that you give him the judgment and the courts in our state and elsewhere have said that those kinds of decisions rest with the trial judge, okay?

>> And yeah, but the trial judge's decision to overturn a jury verdict is subject to appeal to the appellate court.

So there's some checks, and the judge's decision to do that.

There is no check on the executive's power.

>> Okay.

So you're making the argument that no more pardons?

>> No, not.

>> At all.

I know you're not I think that you're giving enough evidence, though, that says we should at least review if this is going to be corrupted in this way, why not review this?

>> Well, why not review it is because it would be very difficult to do anything with respect to something that's in the Constitution.

>> I agree.

>> And they would have to have an amendment.

And how is that going to work that 35 or 38 states have got to go ahead.

>> And we're a very unified country.

I think we can come together on this.

Oh, >> Sure, sure we can.

>> Just what country are you in, Evan?

>> There are certain things I do think would be unifying, and this might be one of them.

And, you know, if anybody wants to make the claim that this is some sort of partisan conversation, you know, I think Judge Dellinger was on this program back in January talking about the pardons that outgoing President Biden was doing.

And, I mean, it turned my stomach at the time.

And I understand people saying, I already have an email from someone saying Biden did that to protect against what was obviously going to happen and is happening to Comey.

Letitia James, et cetera.

And my response to that would be, well, Comey and James just had their cases thrown out that the system is at least still holding in the way that our guests throughout this year, by the way, have told us they think it still can hold.

The system is not collapsed.

That yes, that the judge in, for example, in Comey's case said, yeah, that looked like political retribution.

And there's no basis for this case.

But I, I think you can't just say, well, you know, I'm going to pardon my son because they're going to be especially harsh on him, or I'm going to pardon my siblings because maybe they'll use the law to go after anybody connected to me.

I think you have to trust that the system works, because if you give up and you say that the system doesn't work and you're just going to pardon people close to you, there's no way to get it back.

It's going to be used to the that degree and worse the next time.

And I think we get in a spiral.

I don't know how to get out of this spiral.

What do you think, judge?

>> I think you've absolutely hit on what the issue is.

This is the the increase in the use of pardons will be in part as a result of the increase in the use of, of lawfare of and this is what we got into last time.

And judge Frank made a good point.

You you want professional prosecutors making an objective determination.

Okay.

Well, it's becoming hard to define what a professional prosecutor is and what's an objective determination.

But the use of the pardon if if one of a judge can excuse me if one president can say he or she is undoing what the prior administration did, then this is just a function of the the the lawfare getting out of control.

>> So let me read some feedback from listeners in Fairport.

This is Sean who says the Hernandez pardon was so illogical that I can't help but think a payoff was made.

Could the pressure on Venezuela be intended to extract a payoff from Maduro?

Trump's support and direct involvement in the crypto industry would certainly make such payoffs possible.

Sean.

Part of the problem is when when you act in corrupt ways, it's easy for the public to lose trust in you and to assume corruption in a lot of things that you do, whether they're corrupt or not.

So I don't know the answer to that.

But, I mean, I'm worried about are you worried about public trust?

Judge Dellinger?

>> I am a firm believer that the rule of law creates one thing that is the public's confidence that everybody in the country is going to abide by the law.

That is the cornerstone, in my opinion, of our democracy, our country.

The whole notion of the rule of law.

go back to the early founders.

We're not a country of people.

We're a country of laws.

And it just seems to me that you look at, for example, the Hernandez indictment that is a federal statute that was laboriously worked out to create a standard for compliance and to eliminate conspiracies and the movement of illegal drugs in America worked on by Congress, approved by the Congress, signed into law by the president.

Someone is found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

And I agree with my colleague, former prosecutor John Ark.

It ain't easy.

Those are tough cases.

Those are big cases.

They have all kinds of potential complications in them.

But as soon as the public loses confidence that we are a country of laws, I worry that the entire civil system is at risk.

And the notion that the executive can waive compliance with the laws undercuts people's faith in the rule of law.

>> Yeah.

So I don't know how it's going to take some real principled action to pull back from the spiral.

>> I completely agree with that.

And I'll just second what Judge Van Strydonck said.

The problem is the pardon power is in the Constitution.

I don't see any way that it can be changed.

I don't think the Congress will ever have the courage to try to put a limitation on the pardon power.

if you were going to do it by legislation, you would need a president to sign it.

There isn't a president, Democrat or Republican, who's going to sign a limitation on the pardon power.

It just never going to happen.

Can't do it by constitutional amendment.

It would take 38 states to ratify it.

I don't see that happening either.

So it's the pardon power we need to count on public persuasion and sort of the morals of a country built on rule of law to convince people that use of it like this is inappropriate.

>> I got an email from Dell that we're going to read on the other side of this only break, and I think it's going to be I think a good jumping off point to talk about reform of pardons.

So again, Judge Van Strydonck wants us to live in reality.

And the reality is we're probably not going to take away pardon power.

Okay.

I'm with you there, Judge Dollinger.

Same point.

I mean, when you look at the process that would be required, I take the point.

But I think we can have at least a public conversation about where we think the standard should be, even if we don't put legal strictures on them.

Shouldn't we have an idea of where the lines are?

And let's do that.

Well, I'll I'll read your email, listeners, if there's more you want to share about as we talk about pardon power and possible abuse or corruption of pardons, you can email the program Connections at wxxi.org.

connections@wxxi.org.

You can join the chat if you're watching on YouTube, or you can call the program toll free.

It's 8442958442958255263 WXXI.

If you call from Rochester 2639994.

>> Coming up in our second hour, new data obtained by CBS News finds that the vast majority of Ice raids that have happened in the last several months do not involve people with criminal records.

The Trump administration has said they want to go after violent criminals, drug traffickers.

But most of the Ice detentions are not that.

And we're seeing what that looks like even in our community.

So we're going to talk to those who've been advocating against Ice, talk to them about specifically what they want to see next.

That's next.

Our.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Before we jump into Del's idea on how to reform some of this briefly, we got a question from a listener asking regarding long sentences.

Why not commutations that would address a possibly onerous sentence without forgiving the act?

Can the president commute sentences?

>> Sure.

Absolutely can and does.

>> And does.

>> Sure.

So, judge President Truman commuted the death sentence for the individual who was convicted of attempting to assassinate President Truman.

And he made the death penalty a life sentence instead of a death penalty.

So, yes, it can be and is often done.

>> Okay.

So a logical question.

And, you know, for those who are wondering about the differences or why they would be used in certain ways, there's a lot of speculation about, you know, is Ghislaine Maxwell going to get a pardon.

And someone much smarter than me said, if you pardon her, then she can talk and say whatever she wants.

If you grant clemency or commute her sentence, then she's still on the hook.

So don't expect to pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell on those grounds, I don't know.

I that's and gentlemen, is that good analysis or any standing there.

>> No I don't see where if if she was given clemency i.e.

that she was released from prison.

I don't see how she could get herself in jeopardy by speaking out.

there might be a subrosa agreement.

She won't.

That's different.

But I don't think once they commuter sentence so that she's now free, that they can put her back under the thumb of the president.

>> Okay.

Jack and Greece on the phone.

Hey, Jack.

Go ahead.

>> Oh, thanks, Evan.

Hey, Evan.

there was some real good points raised already, but I just want to come back to January the 6th.

when when the leadership and the Republican Party stood up in Congress and said that, you know, this is too far, there was a legal process to follow.

President Trump was wasn't was not indicted.

But his personal involvement.

And it was such an important part of his campaign to get reelected.

I just you were talking about limits.

Where should there be limits?

And to me, I'm not sure how you how you define that, but when a president is personally involved in really what turned insurrection that he should not have the power to pardon all those people that were already convicted and sentenced some to very long prison times for insurrection?

Anyway, that's my opinion.

>> Okay, Jack, thank you.

On January 6th, any dissent there from the panel?

>> Dissent from what?

The president pardoned everyone, even those who were not convicted yet.

The the the charges were still pending against many of them.

And he pardoned them all.

that was on January 20th.

And or.

Excuse me.

July, January 20th.

>> One of his first actions.

>> In January 17th, before Biden left office, he commuted the sentences of 2500 people.

How does how does either of them know the details of that many people to submit to them, to a computation or to a pardon?

It just defies logic to think that each individual case was reviewed by the president, and he was convinced of the rightness of the pardon.

>> I completely agree with Tom.

I think those were political maneuvers by both presidents, both by President Biden and by President Trump.

I would just point out there were those who were charged with killing law enforcement officers in the insurrection at the state, at the national capital, killing a police officer.

They walked.

>> Well, they never killed a police officer.

>> What they did.

But one of the Capitol guards.

>> Oh, the only person who was killed was the woman who was a protester.

Ashli Babbitt.

Ashley.

>> But but a police officer died, >> Right as a result.

As a result, I'll correct that.

>> You're right.

A couple of weeks later for a stroke.

>> But my my point is that there was incredible violence directed against the most important institution in the United States, the United States Congress.

And a lot of people who did a lot of bad stuff walked.

And but I also agree with, with Tom's characterization it's hard to say that that somehow politically flawed when several days earlier, the then current president pardoned 2500 people, including members of his family.

>> Well, I mean, judge, when you look at January 6th, what Jack wanted to hear about you know, to me it sets a different standard when we don't have a peaceful transition of power or an attempted rupture of a peaceful transition of power.

I'm open to the idea that somebody in that group of 1500 people who've been charged or convicted was kind of caught up in it and was not actually acting in that way, or maybe was wrongfully charged.

I'm open to the idea that that could be happening.

All of them.

do you agree with your colleague across the table, the judge Van Strydonck, that there's no way that you can pardon 1500 people involved with that and.

>> Be confident that as a matter of of process, you wouldn't know the detail on every case.

But as a matter of principle, you could do it.

Okay.

Now, the very first pardon was a result of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1790 and the first pardon, two pardons were issued by President Washington against two people who were convicted in the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania.

And the reason and they were both sentenced to capital punishment.

And the reason that he issued the pardon was to heal, was to heal the process that the people in western Pennsylvania felt that they were treated being treated unfairly because of the excise tax on whiskey.

It's that simple.

And that was our first pardon, was Washington.

He did it for political reason, but his motivation was to heal the rift.

And these two people were convicted of sedition or whatever must have been against the federal government at the time.

So there's a lot there's there's a long history.

>> There's a long history of pardons that were designed to, to to bring down the temperature and heal.

Nixon and Ford is a great example of that, too.

And those can be debated.

it's hard to look at January 6th and say the, the, the new president just wanted to heal the country.

I don't think that that's.

>> He wanted to from his perspective.

And I think that's my perspective, is that there was an injustice done that he wanted to correct.

>> let's get David in Rochester on the phone next.

Hey, David, go ahead.

>> Thank you for taking my call.

yeah, my comment really is that this is the presidential pardons are just another example of number one.

the expansion of presidential power.

Number two that this is for personal reasons, not for healing the country, as I think possibly the founders thought that it might be used for.

And third, it's it's a erosion of justice.

It's a pay for play.

And so those with money and influence are perhaps not the the rioters for from January 6th, but most of many others, it's, it's a kind of a pay for play situation.

and for those who don't have that anything to offer a president, they generally don't get pardoned.

>> I, I think that that's a pretty fair observation based on the history of it.

David.

And then my question becomes if if it looks like pay to play like it did with Marc Rich, like it does with, you know, the the crypto billionaire, what is the only what's the recourse here?

Is it public shame judge Van Strydonck I mean what tool do we have.

>> That that's probably the only effective tool.

The real tool would be an impeachment.

but that would take a Congress with much steel in their spine than we seem to have right now.

Well.

>> A listener named Mary wants to go a step further.

She says yes.

Clinton seemed to open the door that now looks like nothing compared to what Trump is doing, or is being led to do by White House players like Stephen Miller.

The decline in decorum, the escalation in corruption and cruelty.

she says 25th amendment is what she wants.

So that's her solution.

She wants to invoke.

She thinks we should.

Someone should be invoking the 25th amendment.

>> Here, meaning that the executive is not qualified to serve.

>> Yeah.

Is deemed to be removable based on.

She says, falling asleep at meetings.

I mean, look, we now have two presidents in a row falling asleep at meetings.

That can't be the only.

>> Can I just.

>> Go ahead, Rick.

>> I just want to add two things.

First of all, David's comment about expansion of the presidential power.

This is not an expansion of the president's power.

He's had the power to pardon since Judge General Washington did it in the late 1790s.

And the other thing I would just mention, I'm not going to give away anything publicly, but age alone is not a reason to do that.

I know one of the members of this panel is older than the president, and he's barking out comments and making comments, and he's completely with it.

It's it's not about age.

It's not about decrepitude on behalf of the president.

It's about the principles.

And that's what Judge Van Strydonck was talking about, the principle.

If the public's not willing to stand up for the principle we can't move this thing forward.

>> Yeah, and, Judge Arc, when you talk about the fact that if a judge makes a decision about a conviction that the judge has sort of de facto pardon power in a sense, but to your point, that's reviewable.

That can be appealed.

The judge can be reviewed.

President cannot.

Do you see any other tool besides public shame when when this gets out of hand this way.

>> I mean, the pardon level or judicial.

>> At the presidential level?

>> No, I mean, that's why they do it three days before they leave office.

I mean, seriously, you have to would would President Trump have done this if he were up for reelection in 2028?

Okay.

they do it.

There's a door slamming.

I mean, it's it's clear you don't you don't see somebody saying on the day before the election, Trump didn't come out and say he was going to be pardoning all these people, I'm sure, because it becomes a political issue, which is ultimately where, where, where it should be.

>> Okay.

Fair enough.

let's get Paul in Brighton next.

Hey, Paul, go ahead.

>> Oh, hello.

I was listening on the way home, driving home, and I came to the same thought that was expressed by folks on your panel.

why would anybody believe they're ever going to get a fair shake anywhere in this country again?

in any interaction with the legal system or politics?

we've you know, the pardon discussion is interesting, but we've crossed the Rubicon.

you know, all bets are off.

I don't know why you know, just a regular person walking around this country could could have any faith in any one of our institutions anymore.

you know, jury duty you know, it's just there's nothing to believe in anymore.

>> Let me just jump in, Paul, and I'll let our guests respond.

But I'll just tell you this.

The reason that I don't agree with you is because all of the noises at the national level, and it is pretty ugly right now, but when you look at the way local governments run, go to local courts, get on a jury.

I mean, participate if you get called, I think you will still see that the standards that we want are in place in many of the institutions still, and that should give you a lot of hope.

I think local governance, it doesn't all look like the most phantasmagoric funhouse mirror stuff that we're seeing out of Washington.

So I understand why you could feel that way, or feel that we can't trust institutions.

But judge Arc if you have to go to court and defend yourself these today, would you feel like the institution is is trustworthy?

>> Yeah, I think so.

And the for maybe 20 years, I was chairman of the jury board and we were the, the board that was responsible to bring in all the jurors.

Tom, how many was it?

50,000 jurors were noticed a year or something like that.

And and the one thing that the feedback that we got more than anything was how much the people enjoyed sitting in the jury.

Okay.

And when you got a big case, a big involved visible case, and the juries might spend 3 or 4 weeks on it.

One thing that also came back to us, that when it's over with, they're let down because for the 3 or 4 weeks, there's so much in the focus.

They themselves are focused.

They say guilty or not guilty or whatever the decision is, then it's over for them.

And what we do is we we get feedback.

As the people were let down, because that that aspect of their existence of something they've never done before was over.

And they found it very exciting.

And people that sit on grand jurors as grand jurors, would you sit for 20 days?

The feedback invariably was, that was great.

That was really exciting.

Do you have any more cases for us?

Of course, you get people that are feel put upon and whatnot, but to when you're a grand juror, you might read, see the paper or watch television and you see there was a homicide or something.

And two days later, the case, you're hearing the case and the grand jury and deciding if it should proceed or not.

So there's a lot to the system that still works.

What I want to be involved in litigation.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

But it also would be nice to know that the president was my body.

>> Okay, so that's where people get cynical.

I get that by the way, what you just described there a great way to teach people civics to go through grand jury process.

Jury process?

>> Yeah.

>> It's terrific.

Yeah.

So, Judge Dellinger, Paul is feeling like it's hard to trust any part of the system anywhere anymore.

What do you think?

>> Well, I, I get that at the national level, but I agree with you.

I think if you look at the criminal justice system, the district attorneys that we've all worked with over the course of the last 40 years the judges who've been on the bench, Democrat and Republican, I have having sat there, I have a lot of confidence in my colleagues across the board to do the right thing, to figure out the right answer under the law, to do the exploration, if necessary, to modify a sentence based on other factors.

I have a tremendous respect for my peers in the judiciary and for the system that allows them to function and dispense justice.

I have not lost faith in that.

And I believe that this blip in the national faith in the judicial system and the criminal justice system is undergoing a challenge.

But I have some confidence that when all is said and done, people with level heads will prevail and we will restore people's faith.

We need to do that in order to continue to be a single country under the rule of law.

>> Judge Van Strydonck, what would you say to Paul who's losing faith in institutions?

>> Yeah, we have a very strong democracy, a very strong union, and we're certainly going to survive the issue of whether pardons have been inappropriately given.

So I would hope that our, our public doesn't lose faith.

I can understand why right now people have that opinion.

but we're going to survive it.

>> David writes to say, Evan, about presidential pardons.

The elephant in the room is the cost to defend yourself against a Justice Department that is going after you for political revenge.

Comey or James are big names.

They have their own money and maybe white knights to help pay the defense.

You or me or any average American will get hammered until bankruptcy.

The government doesn't have to win the case to get what they want.

That's from David.

What do you think there, judge?

>> I don't know how he connects that to the pardon power.

Is he suggesting that pardon should be used?

>> I so I think I think that relates to the Biden pardons because Biden's justification in pardoning Hunter Biden, his siblings, their spouses, some other associates was he didn't trust the next administration not to try to exact revenge.

And he wanted some kind of pardon to insulate against that.

David is basically saying, if you're fortunate enough to have resources, you can fight the government coming after you, but it's not unreasonable to say that the government is now being weaponized and the average person is going to be in trouble.

>> Well, if you if you take that argument and you examine the people that Biden preemptively pardoned, they would all have the resources doctor, Fauci, Fauci, the others would have resources pardoning his son.

I really I can't fault him much for that.

And it's not without precedent.

>> You can't fault him for the Hunter Biden pardon?

>> No, it's his son.

I know he promised not to do it, but it's his son.

It's be tough to have him.

He's not without precedent.

You know, Bill Clinton pardoned his half brother, Roger Clinton, and it goes back to Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln pardoned his wife's sister.

So it's not without precedent.

And one can understand that it's the pay for play pardons that I think are the most troublesome, at least in my mind.

>> Okay.

David, I appreciate that email.

Let me get.

Now, let me get to Del's ideas here.

del says respectfully.

I would push back at the idea that because everybody does it, that Trump's pardons are like any of the past administrations.

Let me just jump in and say, del, I don't think I put it that way.

I think in the modern era, Bill Clinton opened the door for a different kind of routine, and the routine was, as you're going out the door, who is my biggest donor?

Who's in trouble, who is close to me?

Who could use a little help?

and that, I think, is judge just said it's not like it never happened before.

Marc Rich.

It's just routine now, and it's amped up, and I think it's at a whole new level now.

But del goes to say, has the pardon power been somewhat indiscreetly used by past presidents?

Absolutely.

I would even go so far as to say Biden's pardoning of his own son on his way out seemed out of line to me, but I cannot fathom how anyone could argue that Donald Trump's pardoning of cronies and those close to his sphere is anything like what has been done in the past.

He has not even tried to hide the fact that he is pardoning those that flatter or benefit him personally.

It is absolutely different.

I don't disagree that there is an important reason for pardoning power, but on that token, perhaps there should be some guardrails on this wholly corruptible ability.

Thank you del we're going to talk about guardrails here.

Some ideas.

But I think the sound bite that we played with President Trump talking to Norah O'Donnell was revealing when he says, I didn't know the guy.

Changpeng Zhao from Binance, who gets a pardon.

However, he says, my sons told me that he's a good guy, that he got a bad deal from the Biden administration.

And by the way, my sons are big into crypto.

I mean, it's a bright line.

You're just drawing.

They're in business.

They're in crypto.

This guy is in crypto.

You don't know anything about the case.

You're listening to your sons who want to pardon for the guy who's then going to put $2 billion into their company.

It's not subtle.

You're right, del, it's not subtle.

I'm with you there, Rick.

>> My biggest concern about the current status of the pardon power is that what I'm going to predict right here and right now, write it down.

Donald Trump leaves office.

He will pardon everybody in his administration, everybody in the executive administration.

That's what Joe Biden did for his family.

That's what Bill Clinton did for his donors.

And the other interesting thing about it, of course, now that the president has immunity on the use of the pardon power, you could at least based on what I know, you can never hold him responsible, even if he is selling pardons.

You can't do it.

So he's immune.

He knows he's immune.

He knows he can do it.

He knows he can put him out in the marketplace and sell him.

And there's nothing Congress can do other than to try to impeach him.

which is an almost impossible task requiring two thirds of the vote of the Senate.

we are stuck with this pardon power.

I agree with Tom that unless the public rises up and expresses its abhorrence, it's not going to change.

And what's unfortunate is if you look at the last 30 years from Clinton to Biden and further down to Trump it looks like there are no guardrails at all.

>> So del is asking for guardrails.

And let's close.

I'm going to read something.

I'm going to ask all of our guests if they want to endorse any of these ideas.

And again, this would be for pardon reform.

It is not meant to be a blueprint for saying the law is going to change, because we're not going to change the Constitution.

As our guests have said on this issue overnight or maybe ever.

But these are the kind of guardrails that we can at least recognize as being where the lines should be.

And this comes from Liz Mayer.

She's an attorney and a political consultant in Washington.

She said her ideas for pardon reform.

Number one, no more auto pens.

Pardons have to be ink signed by the president's hand.

No ability to pardon close family donors, former cabinet officials, members of the Joint Chiefs, The White House or political staff or current or former officials who endorsed that president or anyone who hired a lobbyist to interface with the administration on their behalf.

The president and close family cannot financially benefit from granting the pardon, or the president who signed it personally forfeits $250 million in cash per conviction, for which a pardon was granted.

So that's part of the law that you're never going to get.

So that's not going to happen.

But then she says no pardons for people convicted of more than one murder or sex offense.

Sorry, Diddy, she says.

Okay.

So those are some of the ideas.

Judge Van Strydonck anything there that that you would say, okay, that's a good guardrail.

>> No.

>> Nothing.

>> I don't think so.

It's it's a restriction that won't be put into place by any legislature or accepted by any president.

>> I'm just saying we should have a discourse that says it is.

It is not legally enforceable.

But this is where the public would want the lines to be.

>> It's pie in the sky.

It ain't going to happen.

>> Okay.

Judge Dollinger.

>> I agree with Thomas VanStrydonck.

I don't see it.

And the best I recall, there's no evidence at the Constitutional Convention that anybody discussed any of those limitations on the pardon power.

Never even discussed, never even imagined.

I think it was designed for what Judge Arc described in the Whiskey Rebellion.

If there was a chance to bring the country back together and eliminate a civic dispute under all those circumstances, the pardon would be justified.

But those those proposed guardrails, fascinating.

In the abstract in reality is I'm a judge.

Van Strydonck reality type guy.

never going to happen.

>> You're getting him to move on some things.

Do you see that?

It's hard.

>> The older he gets, the more reasonable he comes.

>> Judge.

Hark, any of these guardrails seem like good ideas to you?

>> Well, what they do is they address the the known current abuses.

Okay, so let's say we did address all those.

Well, then there'll be new abuses.

Okay.

And I'll give you a frightening scenario.

The president of the United States is really concerned about a possible political enemy out there.

Okay.

And the president of the United States, let it be known that if this person were shot and killed, it would be better for the country.

And somebody goes out and shoots and kills this person is found guilty after trial, and then the president pardons that person.

That, to me is a frightening scenario.

That's a license to kill.

>> That seems plausible to you.

>> Sure.

>> Yeah.

>> There's there's no restriction on his ability to do that.

Right, John?

None.

Right.

>> There's one issue that I don't think has been addressed, and that's whether the president can pardon himself.

And there's articles written on both sides of it.

And what I found interesting was the president could simply declare under the 25th amendment that he was incapable for a period of time.

His vice president could then act as president and give him a pardon, and that would be a way around it.

So I think the guardrails that you're talking about are not going to be put into place, and there will always be people who can figure out ways around guardrails.

>> Don't have to invoke the 25th amendment.

Just wait till the next president is sworn in.

If it's your vice president is sworn in, he'll pardon you.

Gerald Ford made that crystal clear.

It could happen.

Tom, I agree with you that the next successor can easily pardon his predecessor.

>> Just out of curiosity, did you think the Ford pardon of Nixon was a good idea?

>> No.

>> Judgments.

Yes, yes.

Judge arc.

>> Going back to what George Washington did to try and heal the country, there was benefit to it.

But by the way.

>> You got to make a judge go ahead.

>> Ford took the hit for it.

He wasn't real.

He wasn't elected.

>> Yeah, I do think he clearly thought it was the right thing for the country.

>> I don't dispute that.

Yeah, I just wouldn't have done it.

>> Okay.

Thank you.

All judges arc.

Dollinger van Strydonck, come back and talk to us soon.

Here.

Thanks, everyone.

More Connections coming up in a moment.

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