Neal Katyal on Preemptive Pardons: ‘Understandable Act’ Given What Trump’s Nominees at the DoJ Are Saying They’d Do

PSAKI: “Okay, Neal, what do you think of these pre-emptive pardons? Is this a good idea for President Biden and his team to do, potentially?”
KATYAL: “So, Jen, there’s a legal answer and then there’s a pragmatic answer. The legal answer is, it’s absolutely okay. The Supreme Court in 1866 and the Garland case said that the president’s power — pardon power is unlimited and it extends to anything, including pardons before legal proceedings are taken. So, there’s a clear precedent on that. Now, the pragmatic question is more difficult. I’m not a fan of using pardons in this way generally, but here it’s an understandable act, given what Donald Trump’s nominees to the Justice Department have said they wanted to do. I mean, ordinarily, I trust the system. But these nominees are saying, in their own words, they want to break the system. And, you know, as you saw in government, as Andrew saw, as I saw, the best thing about serving in government is you see non-partisan expert decision-making. It’s awesome. It’s inspiring. The last thing you want is for those folks to be afraid. And the other thing I’d say is, look, people are saying these will be political pardons or something like that. Just think about what Donald Trump did the last time he was in office. These aren’t the first politically overtoned pardons. I mean, he pardoned Steve Bannon, he pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, he pardoned Republican Congressman Rick Renzi, he pardoned Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham, he pardoned Elliott Brody, who was the RNC finance chair, he commuted Roger Stone’s sentence, we can go on and on.