The Daily - A New Path for Presidential Pardons

Episode Date: August 9, 2018

For decades, getting a presidential pardon in the United States required a cumbersome petition process and a long legal review. But those seeking pardons from President Trump are using a very different strategy. Guest: Campbell Robertson, a national correspondent for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. For decades, getting a presidential pardon required a cumbersome petition process and a lengthy legal review. Under President Trump, those seeking pardons are using a very different strategy.

It's Thursday, August 9th. Trump took office and people didn't know what he was going to do about pardons. In fact, I think a lot of folks didn't think he would do much at all. And then August in his first year. President Trump is making news over the possibility of pardoning former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Kind of out of nowhere, he floated the notion that he would pardon former Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Campbell Robertson is a national reporter for The Times. Why am I doing this?

Sometimes I ask myself, and it's corny, I'm going to tell you why I do it. The people want me as the sheriff. Arpaio was this hero among the hard right. We just arrested 31 more recently coming into our country illegally. He was a former sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona. And we're going to continue to raid businesses that hire illegals. The majority have false identification, so I'm not stopping doing my job. And the Justice Department a few years before had described him as violating constitutional rights like pretty much no other law enforcement officer, and mainly at Latinos. I don't know what

an illegal looks like. I'm an equal opportunity law enforcement guy. We lock up everybody. He was charged with racial profiling, unconstitutional treatment of prisoners, had willfully defied court orders, but I think some on the hard right saw him as standing up for law and order. So... Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job? Trump floated the idea he would pardon him, and then at a rally in Phoenix...

I'll make a Phoenix. I'll make a prediction. I think he's going to be just fine, okay? He said that former Sheriff Arpaio would be just fine. But Sheriff Joe can feel good. And he did, a few days later, indeed pardon him. And what's the general reaction to Joe Arpaio's pardon outside of the Republican base? Mostly people were shocked by it. President Trump is facing sharp criticism for granting a pardon to Joe Arpaio. The main focus early on was, of all people, Joe Arpaio. Arpaio gained notoriety for his aggressive action to arrest illegal immigrants.

Lawmakers and civil rights advocates are questioning the president's decision and its timing. Arpaio was scheduled to be sentenced in October. Democrat and Republican senators, as well as a few civil rights organizations, are all slamming President Trump's decision. One group going as far as to call the move a defense of racism. I'm angry. What Trump did today was pardon racism, white supremacy,

and okayed the terror that our pile caused. And what he was being pardoned for was not some long-ago drug conviction or something where he might have been rightfully convicted, but, you know, you want to grant some compassion. This is for defying a court. Right. So this is not quite what people imagine

from presidential pardons. No, particularly in the last few decades where presidents have been reluctant to issue them earlier in their term. There might be one here, a couple there, a commutation. And then there's just kind of a flurry at the end of their term,

right before they're going out of office. And part of that is because pardons are usually not very politically popular, particularly for controversial figures. And so for Trump to pardon an extremely controversial figure, not even a year into office, was pretty unusual. And so when he did that, it opened the question of, how's he going to use this power? So some months later...

And do you remember Christian Saucier, the U.S. Navy sailor who tried to use Hillary Clinton as a court of defense? Former Navy sailor Christian Saucier. Who was convicted of taking pictures of classified areas of a nuclear submarine. I think that President Trump, you know, I think he knows that in my heart, I understand I made a mistake and I accept a responsibility for it. And I hope he'll give my family and I a chance to basically have a future. And he went on Fox & Friends and laid out his case. Pardoning me isn't going to alleviate the punishment. I mean, I think I've been pretty severely punished.

I've lost all of my life savings. And just a few days later, in March. The president has pardoned Christian Saucier, a Navy submariner. He gets a full pardon. Mr. Saucier was 22 years old at the time of his offenses and has served out his 12-month sentence. So he goes on Fox News,

and we presume the president saw it, and this sailor is pardoned. Yes. And his attorney says that Fox News helped. They're very open about it. So this is when the game show really starts. A former White House aide will stand trial in the CIA leak case. So next in April.

Scooter Libby's perjury and obstruction trial is Scooter Libby. Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff lied to investigators about his conversations with reporters about Valerie Plame. Now, he had been convicted of leaking classified information. His sentence was commuted by George Bush, but he wanted a full pardon. And someone who was a friend of Mr. Trump's brought Libby's name to Trump. The White House released a statement that quotes the president as saying,

I don't know Mr. Libby, but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. And hopefully this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life. He got a pardon. Then, the next month. At 6 feet 1 and 212 pounds. Jack Johnson. Johnson is lean and hard. Jack Johnson was a world champion boxer and over 100 years ago was convicted in a completely racist, racially motivated conviction for

traveling with a white girlfriend. And when Trump signed his pardon... Today, as president, I've issued an executive grant of clemency, a full pardon, posthumously, to John Arthur Jack Johnson. There was a big affair at the White House with Sylvester Stallone. I've been so blessed with the Rocky situation and playing that character.

Sylvester Stallone had been pushing his case. It was very much last episode of a game show, you won the pardon moment. I'm Dinesh D'Souza. Then Dinesh D'Souza. My new book, The Big Lie, exposing the Nazi roots of the American left. It's out today. D'Souza is a conservative writer, media guy who makes movies about how evil Democrats are. And he'd been convicted of campaign violations. And

his case was apparently pled by Ted Cruz. I had the opportunity to raise the issue with President Trump. I encouraged him to pardon Dinesh D'Souza. And he got a full pardon. President Trump seemingly passing out pardons to heroes of the far right almost as eagerly as Oprah once gifted Pontiacs to suburban moms. Now people are starting to see where this is going, and Trump starts talking about it. And he's now talking about Martha Stewart. Says, maybe I'll pardon Martha Stewart. Or Rod Blagojevich.

Rod Blagojevich. What's that about? I mean, they were both on The Celebrity Apprentice. Trump's dealt with them personally, and maybe they'll get it. And out of desperation, I made one of the worst decisions of my life to make some quick money. Next comes Alice Johnson, a woman who was serving a life sentence in Alabama on some cocaine-related convictions. And a video of her case had made its way to Kim Kardashian West. Well, when I initially called Ivanka, I said, I would love a meeting with your dad. I said that from the start. Ms. West got a personal audience with the president,

pled her case. Tonight, keeping up with the commutations, 63-year-old Alice Johnson to be released from this Alabama prison at any time. And she gets a commutation. Not a full pardon, but she gets a commutation. She's released from prison. President Trump says he's considering a pardon for Muhammad Ali. And then he talks about Muhammad Ali. But the late boxer's lawyers say there's nothing to pardon. And his family comes out and says,

we're very grateful, thank you, but we actually don't need one because his conviction was vacated. But the pattern is pretty clear. The way toward mercy in this administration is a connection to the president through celebrity,

whether that's political celebrity, or that's showbiz, whether that's the base likes him, that's your best shot. Is this even allowed? My impression is that pardons are thoroughly vetted by the Justice Department, by people who understand the law and whether it has been carried out correctly and that this is a process that goes through many, many steps and then at the end, the president signs off on it.

There's almost no check on the president's ability to pardon. There's virtually none. Alexander Hamilton called it his sole fiat. You just do it and it happens. And there's a lot of feeling about a president has so much power, he can declare a treaty null and void, he can declare an invasion. But look at what the president's tried to do

over the last two years. I'm establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. We don't want them here. He starts out almost immediately with a travel ban. Months and months follow in the courts. A federal judge is putting a temporary stop to some of the most important parts

of President Donald Trump's executive order banning citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. The first two are thrown out, basically, and have to be rewritten. This is something one would think that the president would have so much power to do, but there's a judiciary, and they have a check. We're also working with Congress on tax reform and simplification. Then the president says, I want tax reform. Well, Congress basically drove that train. And I am fully committed to working with Congress

to get this job done. And I don't want to be disappointed by Congress. Do you understand me? And then even things that are seem to exist wholly within the executive branch. Uncontrolled immigration. You see what's going on there? That's happening quickly. But a little problem with the courts not want not wanting to give us the decisions that should be given, but we're going to win it. He declares a new approach on immigration that does not invite court challenges. It still requires the Department of Homeland Security to draw off the policies and actually carry them out. But with a pardon, he says it, it's done. So in a way, whenever he is frustrated or flustered by the bureaucracy

of government, by the judiciary, by Congress, when all else fails, there's always the power of pardoning. It's the one thing he can just do on his own on whatever timetable he wants. Exactly. He can say it and it is so. But even given that power, even knowing that a president can do this automatically and without any obstructions, is this how pardons normally happen? So the original idea of a pardon was to respond to sort of over-severity in the criminal justice system. Someone whose life was more or less ruined or overly confined by a conviction. They've done their time. They're some years out of prison.

And they want their full life back again. And it's a measure of official atonement or absolution. You have become a productive member of society. You have obligations, responsibilities you're fulfilling. We're going to let you live a full life again. And so that's how it worked for most of the country's history. And in some periods there were hundreds of pardons a year and it was not noticed much. It was a routine part of the presidency and it began to

change in the 80s. The country got into a very prosecutorial mood and federal sentences got stricter. The prisons started filling up. Collateral consequences started piling up for convictions. In other words, not being able to vote with a felony, not being able to get certain jobs with certain felonies. In some places you can't get social benefits, can't own a gun. And while that was going on at the same time, the pardon office, the sort of escape valve, started closing. The thinking being that the prosecutors really got a hold of the process. They wanted to defend the prosecutions rather than grant clemency. And so the majority of pardons that got before the president were recommended for denial. Hmm. So just as more people are getting felony convictions and the consequences of a conviction

are getting more severe, the country's mood turns against the idea of mercy and of pardoning the people who've been convicted. And even when pardon seekers were good candidates for a pardon by the metrics that you laid out, that they had paid their debt to society, that they were not violent, they were not getting pardoned. No. And the wait for a decision got longer and longer and longer. And it became more necessary to hire a lawyer because the applications were getting more complicated. presidents. It really slowed to a trickle. And then he realized this and in 2014 set up this clemency initiative to give commutations to nonviolent drug offenders serving a long prison sentence. And it went on to grant commutations to over 1,700 people. And while that was a record number, it was still sort of a drop in the bucket. I mean, when he left office, he passed on over 8,000 commutation petitions and 2,000 pardon petitions to Trump, which had not been

closed, denied, granted, or filled. So it's not as if this system that Trump inherited is working all that smoothly for people seeking pardons. is working all that smoothly for people seeking pardons. No, not at all. And in reporting this article, when I talked to pardon seekers, some of whom had been waiting years with pretty sterling looking applications under the Obama administration,

who had a lot of faith that their life story, a seemingly sympathetic president, would end with a pardon. At first, they kind of gave up hope when Obama left office, and this includes Trump supporters and not. They saw Obama as their chance. But now they're looking at this flurry of pardons and they say, well, at least it's something, but I've just got to completely change up my strategy. And change it up how? Instead of trying to stick to these rules and demonstrate through reference letters

and everything else that you've led such and such a life, you've got to figure out how to get somebody famous who can get to President Trump. Is it possible that this new Trump pardoning system, no matter how unusual it seems, might actually be an improvement based on everything you've told us about how much this system has kind of ground to a halt? They found the opaque, slow-moving, bureaucratic system sees this celebrity game show thing as better. It's different. It's another chance.

And it's more transparent that you know the rules now. Under the bureaucratic system, they didn't really know the rules. They didn't know why they weren't making progress. Now they know they're not making progress because they don't know Kim Kardashian. So the key is, how do you get to some variant of Kim Kardashian? Right. And how do you?

Well, I talked to a guy in Dallas who's writing a letter to Sean Hannity. They're thinking about big Trump-supporting churches in the area. Maybe if you go to church there, they know somebody who knows somebody. Another guy in Philly knows where Kelly and Conway's beach house is on the Jersey Shore.

Wow. Dropped a package off on her porch with your bio. So you're talking to people who have felony convictions or criminal convictions who are actively seeking out these kind of side doors and celebrities to see if that's their ticket to a pardon. The fact that they're talking to me at all, a lot of people who are seeking pardons are doing it because they're so embarrassed about it. They want that history gone. So to talk to a national reporter is not something they want to

do. They're doing it because they know it's all about self-promotion now. Hmm. In other words, even the act of talking to you might be a way to get in front of Trump. And they'll say that right out. So you're now part of this Trump pardon system. Yes. Hmm. Comfortably? I mean, these are decent people they want a chance they make their cases i don't think they're cutting lines and the fact is their own lawyers would say look you know you try to do

everything you can you you write your congressman even before trump you try to figure out a way to get this power it's a constitutional power that you technically have access to as a citizen. And there's nothing wrong with trying to figure out how to do it. But doing it through celebrity was pretty clearly not the way it was envisioned. So, as we think about it here, in a way, President Trump has replaced one unfair system with another unfair system. Yes. But the previous system, the results seemed unfair, but we don't really know why. It was unclear why it was working the way it's working.

Now, the unfairness of it, that is, access to fame gets you what you want, the unfairness is right out there in the open. Campbell, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, the Trump administration imposed new economic sanctions on Russia for its attempted assassination of a former Russian spy living in Britain using a nerve agent. of a former Russian spy living in Britain using a nerve agent.

The U.S. has already expelled dozens of Russian diplomats over the chemical weapon attack, which nearly killed the former spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter. But it had not yet enforced a 1991 law that requires sanctions against any country that uses chemical weapons, until now. And... Today we have an opportunity to make history in the nation. New York City being the first city, the one that regulates Uber. On Wednesday, New York became the first major city in the country

to restrict the number of cars for hire through apps like Uber and Lyft after years of outcry over how lightly the new industry has been regulated. The city council approved legislation that temporarily freezes the number of new vehicle licenses for the companies and establishes a minimum pay rate for their drivers. You know, there was a time in New York City when you could, as a recent immigrant to New York City, drive a cab and be able to make it into the middle class to provide a better future for your family, for your children. for your children. The legislation, which was strongly opposed by Uber and its rivals, was prompted in part by the suicide of six taxi drivers whose livelihoods were threatened by the new industry. What we've seen over the last several years is that foothold in the American dream slip away for thousands of drivers.

And it's important that we as a city acknowledge that we have a responsibility here to act. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.