This is the Cater Daily podcast for Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025. I'm Caleb Brown. The presidential

pardon power is baked into the Constitution. Its abuse in recent years, most notably just in the last few days, has led many to question its potential for more strategic abuse in the near term.

Cato's Clark nearly walks us through some of the costs and benefits of giving the chief executive

of the federal government the power to make penalties for crime, simply go away on a highly

selective basis.

Clark, when we booked this appointment, we were going to talk about pardons.

The question now is which ones?

Right.

Yeah, you've got to have a scorecard to keep up.

There have been several just in the last, as of this recording, 48 hours or so. Let's start with Joe Biden on his way out of office,

pardoning not just people who work for his administration, preemptively, but also members of his own family.

Yeah, what can you say about this? I mean, it's essentially unprecedented.

And the question is, I suppose, whether, which is the more jaw-dropping violation of norms here?

An outgoing president pardoning his own family members across the board, blanket pardon, which is in

fact unprecedented, or the threats that were made by the incoming president that at least arguably

create some concern that, you know, the incoming Justice Department may seek to enforce the laws in a kind of punitive and retributive manner.

So take your pick and, you know, which norms violations most appall you.

That is not an unreasonable concern, given what Donald Trump and a lot of the people that he would like

to staff at high levels within his administration. I don't think it's at all unreasonable for an

outgoing president to think there are a bunch of people who are close to me that this incoming

president would like to punish.

I mean, look, retaliatory and vindictive prosecutions are nothing new.

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