The New Yorker:

As the Biden Administration considers granting clemency to officials singled out by Trump, a legal scholar explains the advantages and pitfalls of extending such protections.

By Isaac Chotiner

This past Wednesday, Politico reported that members of the Biden Administration are considering offering pardons to a number of current and former members of the government who may find themselves unfairly prosecuted by the incoming President. Donald Trump has promised to exact revenge on elected officials and political opponents, along with members of the so-called deep state. He has chosen Kash Patel, a close ally who has talked about going after Trump’s enemies, to lead the F.B.I. This has caused people at the White House to wonder whether pardons are the only way to protect potential targets, who include the former chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and the former F.B.I. deputy director Andrew McCabe.

President Joe Biden elicited backlash last week when he pardoned his son Hunter, for his convictions on tax evasion and gun charges, as well as for any potential crimes that spanned the past decade—a so-called blanket pardon. Many Republicans, including Trump, have threatened to pursue Hunter in the same manner that they have threatened Fauci et al., but Hunter remains the only well-known figure Biden has, as of yet, pardoned.

To talk about the benefits and drawbacks of pardoning people in Trump’s crosshairs, I recently spoke by phone with Rachel Barkow, a professor at the N.Y.U. School of Law and an expert on criminal law and mass incarceration. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we also discussed the practical difficulties of trying to protect people from Trump, whether blanket pardons are constitutional, and whether the pardon power makes sense in 2024.

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