Latest news with #NewYorkUniversitySchoolofLaw
06-06-2025
- Politics
What Trump ordering an investigation into Biden's actions might mean legally and politically
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump has ordered an investigation into pardons and other executive actions issued by his predecessor, Joe Biden — launching an extraordinary effort to show that the Democrat hid his cognitive decline and was otherwise too mentally impaired to do the job. Trump, who turns 79 this month, has long questioned the mental acuity and physical stamina of Biden, and is now directing his administration to use governmental investigative powers to try and back up those assertions. Biden, 82, and now undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, dismissed Trump's actions as 'ridiculous.' Here's a look at what Trump is alleging, what impact it could have, and why the country may never have seen anything like this before. Trump directed his White House counsel and attorney general to begin an investigation into his own allegations that Biden aides hid from the public declining mental acuity in their boss. Trump is also casting doubts on the legitimacy of the Biden White House's use of the autopen to sign pardons and other documents. It marks a significant escalation in Trump's targeting of political adversaries, and could lay the groundwork for arguments by leading Republicans in Congress and around the country that a range of Biden's actions as president were invalid. 'Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president,' Trump said Thursday. He then went further, suggesting that rogue elements within the Biden administration might have effectively faked the president's signature and governed without his knowledge — especially when it came to pushing policies that appeased the Democratic Party's far-left wing. 'He didn't have much of an idea what was going on,' Trump said, though he also acknowledged that he had no evidence to back up those assertions. A Trump fundraising email released a short time later carried the heading, 'A robot ran the country?' Legal experts are skeptical about that the investigation will do much more than fire up Trump's core supporters. 'I think it's more of a political act than one that will have any legal effect,' said Richard Pildes, a constitutional law scholar at New York University School of Law. He added: 'I think it's designed to continue to fuel a narrative that the administration wants to elevate, but courts are not going to second-guess these sorts of executive actions' undertaken by Biden. Trump has long questioned the legitimacy of pardons his predecessor issued for his family members and other administration officials just before leaving office on Jan. 20, people whom Biden was worried could be targeted by a Trump-led Justice Department. But Trump has more recently suggested Biden was unaware of immigration policies during his own administration, and said Thursday that aides to his predecessor pushed social issues like transgender rights in ways Biden might not have agreed with. It is well-established that a president's executive orders can easily be repealed by a successor issuing new executive actions — something Trump has done repeatedly since retaking the White House. That lets Trump wipe out Biden administration policies without having to prove any were undertaken without Biden's knowledge — though his predecessor's pardons and judicial appointments can't be so easily erased. 'When it comes to completed legal acts like pardons or appointing judges,' Pildes said, a later president 'has no power to overturn those actions.' Autopens are writing tools that allow a person's signature to be affixed automatically to documents. The Justice Department, under Democratic and Republican administrations, has recognized the use of an autopen by presidents to sign legislation and issue pardons for decades — and even Trump himself acknowledges using it. 'Autopens to me are used when thousands of letters come in from young people all over the country and you want to get them back,' Trump said Thursday. Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt said the 'consensus view is that, as long as the president has directed the use of the autopen in that particular instance, it is valid.' 'The only issue would be if someone else directed the use of the autopen without the President's approval,' Kalt, an expert on pardons, wrote in an email. Yes. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution bestows the president with the power 'to grant Reprieves and Pardons.' 'A president's pardons cannot be revoked. If they could, no pardon would ever be final,' American University politics professor Jeffrey Crouch, author of a book on presidential pardons, said in an email. 'There is no legal obstacle I am aware of to a president using an autopen on a pardon.' Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law professor, said, 'Once you pardon somebody, you can't go back and un-pardon them.' 'If it's done with a president's authority, I don't think it matters whether it's done with an autopen or not,' Greenfield added. 'The president's authority is the president's authority.' Trump's suggestions that Biden's administration effectively functioned without his knowledge on key policy matters go beyond questions about pardons and the president using the autopen. Even there, though, the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. At the time, Trump celebrated the ruling as a 'BIG WIN' because it extended the delay in the Washington criminal case against him on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss. Such immunity would likely cover Biden as a former president. It might not extend to Biden administration officials allegedly acting without his knowledge — though Trump himself acknowledged he's not seen evidence of that occurring. Biden has dismissed Trump's investigation as 'nothing more than a mere distraction.' 'Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false,' he said in a statement. In a word, no. There have been allegations of presidents being impaired and having their administrations controlled by intermediaries more than the public knew — including Edith Wilson, who effectively managed access to her husband, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, after his serious stroke in 1919. Wilson's critics grumbled about a shadow presidency controlled by his wife, but the matter was never formally investigated by Congress, nor was it a major source of criticism for Wilson's Republican successor, Warren G. Harding. More recently, some questioned whether President John F. Kennedy struggled more than was publicly known at the time with Addison's Disease and debilitating back pains while in office. And there were questions about whether dementia might have affected Ronald Reagan during his second term, before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1994, five years after he left office.
Boston Globe
05-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
What Trump ordering an investigation into Biden's actions might mean legally and politically
What did Trump order? Trump directed his White House counsel and attorney general to begin an investigation into his own allegations that Biden aides hid from the public declining mental acuity in their boss. Trump is also casting doubts on the legitimacy of the Biden White House's use of the autopen to sign pardons and other documents. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up It marks a significant escalation in Trump's targeting of political adversaries, and could lay the groundwork for arguments by leading Republicans in Congress and around the country that a range of Biden's actions as president were invalid. Advertisement 'Essentially, whoever used the autopen was the president,' Trump said Thursday. He then went further, suggesting that rogue elements within the Biden administration might have effectively faked the president's signature and governed without his knowledge — especially when it came to pushing policies that appeased the Democratic Party's far-left wing. 'He didn't have much of an idea what was going on,' Trump said, though he also acknowledged that he had no evidence to back up those assertions. A Trump fundraising email released a short time later carried the heading, 'A robot ran the country?' Advertisement Legal experts are skeptical about that the investigation will do much more than fire up Trump's core supporters. 'I think it's more of a political act than one that will have any legal effect,' said Richard Pildes, a constitutional law scholar at New York University School of Law. He added: 'I think it's designed to continue to fuel a narrative that the administration wants to elevate, but courts are not going to second-guess these sorts of executive actions' undertaken by Biden. What types of Biden actions would be covered by the investigation? Trump has long questioned the legitimacy of pardons his predecessor issued for his family members and other administration officials just before leaving office on Jan. 20, people whom Biden was worried could be targeted by a Trump-led Justice Department. But Trump has more recently suggested Biden was unaware of immigration policies during his own administration, and said Thursday that aides to his predecessor pushed social issues like transgender rights in ways Biden might not have agreed with. It is well-established that a president's executive orders can easily be repealed by a successor issuing new executive actions — something Trump has done repeatedly since retaking the White House. That lets Trump wipe out Biden administration policies without having to prove any were undertaken without Biden's knowledge — though his predecessor's pardons and judicial appointments can't be so easily erased. 'When it comes to completed legal acts like pardons or appointing judges,' Pildes said, a later president 'has no power to overturn those actions.' Advertisement What's an autopen and how does it relate to this? Autopens are writing tools that allow a person's signature to be affixed automatically to documents. The Justice Department, under Democratic and Republican administrations, has recognized the use of an autopen by presidents to sign legislation and issue pardons for decades — and even Trump himself acknowledges using it. 'Autopens to me are used when thousands of letters come in from young people all over the country and you want to get them back,' Trump said Thursday. Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt said the 'consensus view is that, as long as the president has directed the use of the autopen in that particular instance, it is valid.' 'The only issue would be if someone else directed the use of the autopen without the President's approval,' Kalt, an expert on pardons, wrote in an email. Doesn't the Constitution give presidents the absolute right to make pardons? Yes. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution bestows the president with the power 'to grant Reprieves and Pardons.' 'A president's pardons cannot be revoked. If they could, no pardon would ever be final,' American University politics professor Jeffrey Crouch, author of a book on presidential pardons, said in an email. 'There is no legal obstacle I am aware of to a president using an autopen on a pardon.' Kent Greenfield, a Boston College law professor, said, 'Once you pardon somebody, you can't go back and un-pardon them.' 'If it's done with a president's authority, I don't think it matters whether it's done with an autopen or not,' Greenfield added. 'The president's authority is the president's authority.' Trump's suggestions that Biden's administration effectively functioned without his knowledge on key policy matters go beyond questions about pardons and the president using the autopen. Even there, though, the Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution. At the time, Trump celebrated the ruling as a 'BIG WIN' because it extended the delay in the Washington criminal case against him on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss. Advertisement Such immunity would likely cover Biden as a former president. It might not extend to Biden administration officials allegedly acting without his knowledge — though Trump himself acknowledged he's not seen evidence of that occurring. What does Biden have to say? Biden has dismissed Trump's investigation as 'nothing more than a mere distraction.' 'Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn't is ridiculous and false,' he said in a statement. Has a president ever sought an investigation like this before? In a word, no. There have been allegations of presidents being impaired and having their administrations controlled by intermediaries more than the public knew — including Edith Wilson, who effectively managed access to her husband, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, after his serious stroke in 1919. Wilson's critics grumbled about a shadow presidency controlled by his wife, but the matter was never formally investigated by Congress, nor was it a major source of criticism for Wilson's Republican successor, Warren G. Harding. More recently, some questioned whether President John F. Kennedy struggled more than was publicly known at the time with Addison's Disease and debilitating back pains while in office. And there were questions about whether dementia might have affected Ronald Reagan during his second term, before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 1994, five years after he left office. Trump himself was indicted four times, and convicted once, while Biden was in office — but those investigations were not ordered by Biden. Advertisement Associated Press writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.
The Intercept
06-05-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
NYU Law About-Face: Students Can Take Exams Without Swearing Off Protests
On Sunday morning, less than 24 hours after The Intercept reported on the issue, New York University School of Law walked back its demand that 31 pro-Palestine students give up their right to protest in order to sit for in-person final exams. The school had said that the students, under disciplinary investigation for participation in sit-in protests earlier this year, had to sign a so-called 'Use of Space Agreement' that included a pledge not to protest on law school property if they wanted to be allowed into academic buildings to sit their exams. 'Should you decide not to sign the Use of Space Agreement, you will still be able to take your in-person exams in the law school buildings in which they are scheduled,' Maggie Morrow, the law school's senior associate director of community standards and processes, wrote in an email obtained by The Intercept. 'That would just be the only purpose for which you would have approved access to the law school buildings.' The 31 law students who received the email were assigned interim 'personae non grata,' or PNG, status following peaceful sit-ins on campus on March 4 and April 29. The school's new email to students did not offer relief from their broader PNG status; they remained barred from most buildings on campus whether they renounce protests or not. Citing privacy provisions, NYU Law did not respond to specific questions about what serious disciplinary violations the sanctioned students are alleged to have committed or why the school has reversed its decision to bar them from final exams. 'Universities have the responsibility to ensure that the vast majority of students, who are engaged in studying for and taking final exams, may do so without disruption,' wrote Shonna Keogan, chief communications officer and an assistant dean at NYU Law, in an email to The Intercept. 'It is not the case that any student is prohibited from taking in-person exams or accessing student health centers as a result of engaging in protest activity. In cases concerning reports of serious disciplinary violations, some students have been asked to sign a use of space agreement which restates the Law School's policy prohibiting disruption during the reading and exam period.' The letter sent to PNG students with the 'Use of Space Agreement' reiterates the total ban from law school buildings with the exception of housing and health centers. It goes on to say, 'The following additional exceptions will be granted subject to your signed consent to the conditions of the attached Use of Space agreement.' If students sign, they will be granted 'Access to Furman Hall and Vanderbilt Hall for the following purposes related to academic requirements ONLY' — with 'in-person exams' listed as one of the reasons. Read our complete coverage Keogan also did not address whether students will still have to sign the Use of Space Agreement in order to access academic buildings for the additional exam-related activities outlined in the document, including undertaking review sessions with faculty, printing outlines and notes, and accessing designated rooms for take-home exams. On May 5, a group of students and alumni from NYU and Columbia Law School rallied in the rain outside of NYU Law's Vanderbilt Hall to demand that the school reinstate the PNG students' full access to campus. 'There's no level of protesting a genocide that will be respected.' 'I think law students across the country are talking about this,' said a first-year student at Columbia Law who helped organize Monday's protest and asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. They pointed to a public call to action put out by Harvard University's Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine coalition as one example. 'I think this is part of a growing trend of repression, and what it shows is that there's no level of protesting a genocide that will be respected,' the student said. 'I think it shows the importance of standing in solidarity with all students protesting to end the genocide.' A current NYU law student who didn't participate in the sit-ins and was not barred from exams said, 'We're at a law school. We're literally taught to uphold the rule of law, which is in large part founded on notions of due process and freedom of speech.' 'The administration can't get themselves out of this mess through these draconian forms of punishment,' the student said. 'I feel like the only way out of this is by actually addressing the concerns of the students and recognizing that what students are asking for is reasonable. The only way out is divestment.'
The Intercept
03-05-2025
- Politics
- The Intercept
NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred from Sitting Final Exams
New York University School of Law barred 31 pro-Palestine law school students from campus facilities and demanded that they sign away their right to protest in exchange for being allowed to return. If the students — deemed 'personae non grata,' or PNG — don't renounce their right to protest on campus, they will be unable to sit for final exams. 'You may not participate in any protest activity or disruptive activity on Law School property,' says the so-called 'Use of Space Agreement' sent to the students, which explicitly lays out conditions for being allowed to return to key campus buildings during the school's 'exam period.' The law students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid further repercussions from the school, are accused of participating in sit-ins, a time-honored form of nonviolent demonstration that is allowed according to NYU policy. The sit-ins on March 4 and April 29 took place, respectively, at the school's Bobst Library and outside the office of the law school dean. (NYU did not immediately respond to requests for comment.) 'What we've seen is a complete violation of our campus norms.' Barring the students from campus and demanding they refrain from protesting represents a dramatic escalation against NYU students involved in demonstrations against Israel's war on Gaza — breaking with school policy and upending precedents for disciplinary procedures, said seven of the PNG students who spoke with The Intercept, as well as other NYU students and faculty. 'What we've seen is a complete violation of our campus norms,' said Andrew Ross, a sociology professor who was himself barred from campus buildings in December before the school reversed the decision three weeks later. 'If you take a step backward and see the walled-off campus spaces and heavily-patrolled entrances to buildings, the uniformed security personnel everywhere, this advanced security infrastructure, and all these new rules that have been established on the fly regarding speech and conduct — this is a very, very exceptional violation of every kind of campus norm that we were accustomed to.' According to emails to the students obtained by The Intercept, they are barred from campus while under investigation for failing to comply with directives from public safety, including to leave the areas of their sit-ins, and of disruptive conduct. NYU conduct policies say any protests at libraries are disruptive, but the law students pointed out that they were protesting outside NYU president Linda Mills's office on the top floor of Bobst Library. 'The school's policies are vague and arbitrary enough to be wielded in any situation against any kind of speech the university looks down upon, particularly pro-Palestine speech,' said a law student who received a PNG notice. 'The school claims protests are banned in the library, which is conveniently where the main administrative offices, including the Office of the President, are located.' While at the protests, the students were handed fliers quoting from the 'failure to comply' and 'disruptive conduct' rules, according to photos reviewed by The Intercept. 'No site or forum is acceptable to the university when it comes to pro-Palestine speech.' 'The school explicitly outlines sit-ins as permitted,' said a second student. 'But as soon as they don't like the sit-in or protest happening, they tell people to stop and, when they don't, they then hand people policies on 'failure to comply' with orders. So, in essence they are communicating that they can immediately make any protest they want a violation of the rules based on whether they are amenable to the content.' NYU students and faculty pointed to past protest actions that did not result in similar repressive sanctions as evidence that pro-Palestine organizers are being disproportionately punished because of their political beliefs. In 2015, for instance, a group of students staged a die-in in the library over Black Lives Matter, but did not face disciplinary consequences. That same year, students staged a sit-in on the 12th floor of Bobst calling for the university to divest from fossil fuels. Students were granted a meeting with board of trustee members after the sit-in — and the school eventually divested from fossil fuels in 2023. 'The divestment sit-in at the same location in Bobst led to actual divestment from fossil fuels,' said the first PNG student. 'There have been dozens of sit-ins in campus libraries since October of 2023, with no punishment meted out. Yet it seems the proximity of our action to the president's office, and the clarity of our demands, made the university more eager to apply the rules to our group.' 'The truth is that no site or forum is acceptable to the university when it comes to pro-Palestine speech.' The PNG law students were themselves protesting NYU's decision to suspend a group of 13 undergraduate students and 3 graduate students in December. The suspended students had participated in a sit-in protest at the university president's office in Bobst Library demanding that NYU divest from Israel. For months, NYU's administration stonewalled organizers who sought to intervene on behalf of the suspended students. Then, on March 4, the law students staged their own peaceful 8-hour sit-in at Bobst in support of the suspended students. Later that day, Craig Jolley, the associate dean of students at NYU, emailed 28 law students who had allegedly participated in the sit-in to say that the protest violated university conduct policy and they had been referred to NYU School of Law's executive committee for formal disciplinary review. The email noted the students were prohibited from accessing any university locations for any purpose aside from attending a scheduled class or entering an assigned residence hall. On April 29, a separate group of law school students who had not received PNG notices staged another sit-in, this time outside the law school dean's office. Two days later, on May 1, three of those law students received PNG notices — and all 31 PNG law students received emails from the school demanding that they renounce protesting so that they would be allowed to return to the campus facilities and sit final exams. Students barred from campus after the March 4 protest said the swipe function on their IDs was disabled as soon as they received Jolley's email. They immediately began encountering issues accessing their assigned residences, health services, the gym, and religious centers. Among the group were Muslim students who were denied access to the NYU Islamic Center during Ramadan. Read our complete coverage On March 7, Jolley clarified that the barred students should be permitted to access health centers, but with ID swipe disabled, students said access was permitted on an ad hoc basis by campus security officers. After they were stopped and questioned by campus security, at least one barred student missed an appointment for gender-affirming care at the health center — an appointment granted only after getting off a monthslong waitlist. On March 21, the law school notified PNG students they could now access religious centers, provided they email the school outlining specific dates, times, and information on their intended religious practice. The law school's disciplinary process has historically been autonomous from the broader university, with more 'due process' baked into its policies. The law school, nonetheless, appears to not have followed even its own rules in the case of the pro-Palestine protesters: the students say they were never served with the required formal complaints and the 20-day window for the university to investigate the alleged misconduct expired more than a month ago. 'There's tremendous inconsistency across the schools, and sometimes even within the schools, about how things are done, and the law school does seem to be making up its own rules right now about how things are done,' said Sonya Posmentier, an English professor at NYU who, along with Ross, was one of two tenured faculty members that received PNG sanctions related to the December sit-in. 'Universities have started to make this very erratic, on the fly, punitive response to protest really, really commonplace. At this point, there is not one place on campus 'private property' where students can protest without fear of pretty draconian repercussions.' 'At this point, there is not one place on campus 'private property' where students can protest.' On April 20, attorneys for some of the law students pressed law school administrators on the decision to impose PNG restrictions — which, as an ostensibly interim measure, violates NYU law school requirements for due process, the students' lawyers said. The lawyers also said administrators had failed to adhere to the law school policy's timeline. In response, according to an email exchange obtained by The Intercept, a lawyer with NYU's general counsel said that the school was conducting only a 'preliminary factual inquiry' to determine whether any rule had been violated and determine if a formal or informal disciplinary process was required. According to a policy guide, formal disciplinary processes are reserved for 'severe violation of university or Law School policy,' such as 'serious violations of academic integrity or threats or acts that imminently endanger members of the community.' William Miller, the lawyer with the general counsel's office, wrote that the preliminary investigation into what kind of process to undertake obviates the objection: 'The 20-day timeline that you reference in your letter is therefore not applicable.' (Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) Miller said in the email that NYU had retained the firm Latham & Watkins to assist in the investigation of the PNG students — one of the Big Law titans that cut a deal with the Trump administration to carry out millions of dollars of pro bono work. Another group of law students met with NYU Law School Dean Troy McKenzie on April 28 to demand explanations for their fellow students' PNG status and raise concerns that the school's partnership with Latham & Watkins could potentially imperil pro-Palestine students. Students said they felt they were granted the interview because they did not request it under the auspices of Law Students for Justice in Palestine and instead focused the intent of the meeting on student disciplinary proceedings. Even so, the students said McKenzie did not offer answers. 'He abdicated any sort of agency he had in the decision-making process,' said one law student at the meeting. 'We said, 'We hear you, what can you offer us?' And he said absolutely nothing.' That's when law students decided to stage the second sit-in outside of McKenzie's office on April 29. It lasted around four hours. (McKenzie did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) On May 1, three law students who participated in the second sit-in received notice that they too were now under PNG status due to 'particularly egregious' conduct and another 15 law students received a warning that they were under investigation. The students bristled at having their conduct called 'egregious,' noting that the protesters left the office area before 5 p.m. when it closed. The 31 total PNG students then received an email that their interim access restrictions would continue unless they signed the 'Use of Space' agreement that said they cannot access the academic buildings where their final exams are held unless they pledge not to participate in protests at the law school. Exams, which count for 100 percent of a student's final grade, start Monday. One law student and pro-Palestine organizer who was declared PNG in March noted that some students' pro bono work — including deportation defense and civil rights lawsuits — is carried out in a building that they are now unable to access unless they sign the agreement. 'Not being able to put our full energy and do client meetings,' said the student, 'as an official legal services provider is not only impeding our ability to comply with our professional responsibilities as legal representatives but also putting our clients' lives at risk.' As of May 2, nearly 300 NYU students, alumni, and community members, as well as groups like the graduate student union, NYU Law Latinx Law Students Association, and NYU Law Jews for Palestine signed an open letter to the administration expressing concerns over the school's indefinite use of PNG status with no due process. Ross, the sociology professor, noted that the use of disciplinary actions seems to be part of a national strategy to target leaders in pro-Palestine movements on campus. 'The point of the suspensions is to take out student leaders, to withdraw them from the field of deployment, and they've been very successful at doing this,' said Ross. 'At NYU, the ranks of student leaders have really been depleted by this strategy over the last year.' 'While some of the responses have been inconsistent and seemingly random,' he said, 'I do think they have been aimed overall at targeting the leaders.'
New York Times
08-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Allies Seek Pardons From an Emboldened White House
On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, a top White House official assured a Republican lobbyist that his client's pardon application would be placed in the pipeline for consideration by President Trump before he left office. Hours later, the administration was torn apart by Trump supporters' attack on the Capitol. The lobbyist never heard back about the pardon, and his client remained imprisoned for his role in an insurance bribery scandal that shook North Carolina Republican politics and left thousands of retirees unable to obtain access to their annuities for years. Four years later, the lobbyist is back, pushing for a presidential pardon for the same client, the insurance mogul Greg E. Lindberg. But this time around is different. The new administration has a team of appointees focusing on the process early in Mr. Trump's term, with a particular focus on clemency grants that underscore the president's own grievances about what he sees as the political weaponization of the justice system. Lawyers and lobbyists with connections to Mr. Trump have scrambled to take advantage. They have collected large fees from clemency seekers who would not be eligible for second chances through an apolitical system that was created by the Justice Department for granting mercy to those who have served their time or demonstrated remorse and a lower likelihood of recidivism. Instead, clemency petitioners are mostly circumventing that system, tailoring their pitches to the president by emphasizing their loyalty to him and echoing his claims of political persecution. Among them are a rapper convicted in connection with a Malaysian embezzlement scheme, a reality-television-star couple found guilty of defrauding banks and evading taxes, and two Washington, D.C., police officers convicted after a chase that killed a young man. Mr. Trump's use of clemency in his first term 'was all about cronyism and partisanship and helping out his friends and his political advisers,' said Rachel E. Barkow, a professor at New York University School of Law who has studied the use of presidential clemency. 'The potential for corruption is higher' this time around, she said. 'Because they're starting early, they have figured out how they want to set it up so that people have a pipeline to get to them.' 'Like any sequel,' she said, 'it's going to be worse.' An Unorthodox Approach Both Mr. Trump and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. were criticized for ignoring the screening and guidelines of the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney in their clemency grants. Clemency experts objected to Mr. Biden's far-reaching pardons of his son Hunter and other family members, and to Mr. Trump's sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The process used by the pardon attorney's office to identify and recommend applicants for clemency is intended to favor those who accept responsibility for their crimes and are unlikely to reoffend. Presidents are under no obligation to act on the office's recommendations in extending second chances through pardons, which wipe out convictions, and through commutations, which reduce prison sentences. According to people familiar with the matter, Mr. Trump's White House had marginalized the pardon attorney's office, shifting control of much of the clemency operation to the White House Counsel's Office. On Friday evening, Elizabeth G. Oyer, who had been the U.S. pardon attorney since being appointed in 2022 during the Biden administration, said on social media that she had been fired from the post by Todd Blanche, the newly confirmed deputy attorney general. Even before her firing, a senior White House official said in an interview that 'the White House Counsel's Office is the one handling all clemency petitions.' Among the White House officials involved are Sean Hayes, who worked for Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, and Gary Lawkowski, who served as deputy general counsel for Mr. Trump's 2024 campaign. In addition, Mr. Trump last month named Alice Johnson as 'pardon czar,' responsible for recommending clemency grants. That formalized a role she had filled as an outside adviser during Mr. Trump's first term, when she advocated for legislation and clemency grants to reduce sentences for mostly nonviolent drug offenders. Mr. Trump in 2018 had commuted her life sentence for nonviolent drug-related offenses, then granted her a full pardon in 2020. Clemency supporters expressed optimism that Ms. Johnson would push for pardons and commutations for people of color, as well as for those who lack wealth or political connections and whose petitions might otherwise languish in the pardon attorney's office. Before Mr. Trump, her own application had been denied by the office, which has drawn criticism for moving too slowly and giving too much weight to prosecutors' views. Shared Grievances Alex Little, a former federal prosecutor, represents three people seeking clemency with appeals that mirror Mr. Trump's grievances. 'There are key players in the Trump administration who have had a front-row seat to prosecutorial misconduct,' he said in an interview. 'It changes your perspective on these issues, and it's difficult to ignore that when you're back in government.' Mr. Little prepared thick binders with court documents, testimonials and narrative summaries to present to the White House and certain Justice Department officials — but notably not the Office of the Pardon Attorney — in arguing for mercy for his clients. Among them are the conservative reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley. They were sentenced in 2022 to years in federal prison for bank fraud and tax evasion, which prosecutors said was done to fund a lavish lifestyle. Mr. Little wrote that their conviction 'exemplifies the weaponization of justice against conservatives and public figures, eroding basic constitutional protections.' The summary, which was read aloud by the Chrisleys' daughter, Savannah Chrisley, on her podcast last month, notes that her parents are 'vocal supporters of President Trump.' Mr. Little's summary linked the prosecutors in the Chrisleys' case to Fani T. Willis, the Georgia state prosecutor who charged Mr. Trump in 2023 in connection with his efforts to cling to power after the 2020 election. Mr. Little is also working on the Lindberg case, comparing him in the pardon packet to Mr. Trump, and writing that Mr. Lindberg 'became a target of overzealous career prosecutors at the D.O.J. and F.B.I. who twisted a legitimate business dispute into criminal charges.' His summary notes that Mr. Lindberg was previously represented by Mr. Blanche, and suggesting that the deputy attorney general, who is expected to oversee the Justice Department's clemency portfolio, believes the case was flawed. The Justice Department did not respond to questions about whether Mr. Blanche would recuse himself from the matter. Also working for Mr. Lindberg are two well-connected lawyers who had pushed for a pardon at the end of the last Trump administration: the veteran Republican lobbyist Alex Vogel and the noted defense attorney Alan M. Dershowitz, who had defended Mr. Trump during his first impeachment trial and developed a niche as a clemency advocate toward the end of the administration. Mr. Dershowitz in an interview cast his clemency work as a continuation of his legal representation, adding, 'I only take on cases that I think merit clemency.' Mr. Vogel was the person who was lobbying a top White House official in the hours before the Capitol riot, according to a person familiar with the episode. High-Priced Advocacy Mr. Vogel's firm was paid $100,000 in less than three months of lobbying for one of Mr. Lindberg's companies back then, according to congressional filings, hinting at the lucrative fees available to those who offer to help secure pardons from Mr. Trump. A different Lindberg company re-engaged Mr. Vogel's firm after Mr. Trump's victory in the 2024 election and paid it $100,000 in December. Another Trump-connected lawyer at a law firm where Mr. Vogel is a partner, Jonathan Fahey, represented a Washington, D.C., police officer who was pardoned by Mr. Trump in January. The officer had been sentenced to four years in prison for conspiring to cover up a police chase that killed a 20-year-old Black man. The episode led to days of racial-justice protests and clashes in the nation's capital. Mr. Fahey, who has complained about a politicization of the Justice Department against Mr. Trump, in a social media post called the officer 'the victim of a politically motivated prosecution.' Similarly, allies of the Sam Bankman-Fried have been consulting with a former Trump campaign lawyer to position the imprisoned cryptocurrency mogul for a pardon by claiming he was treated unfairly by a prosecutor and a judge with whom Mr. Trump's team has clashed. Margaret Love, who served as the U.S. pardon attorney in the 1990s and now works in private practice advising petitioners, warned that Mr. Trump's approach to clemency risked favoring wealthy or well-connected people who claim mistreatment by the justice system. 'Ordinary people who express remorse and seek forgiveness should be able to access clemency's benefits without the intervention of high-priced lawyers and lobbyists,' she said in an email. Other lawyers with ties to Mr. Trump who successfully secured clemency during his first term are back with more clients. Adam Katz previously helped secure a commutation for Adriana Camberos, a Southern California businesswoman who was sentenced to prison for her role in a scheme to sell millions of counterfeit bottles of the caffeinated drink 5-hour Energy. She was convicted in a new fraud involving consumer goods in October, becoming one of at least seven people who have since been charged with domestic violence and other new crimes, according to analyses by The New York Times. Mr. Katz, who once represented Rudolph W. Giuliani in a defamation case related to his effort to overturn Mr. Trump's loss in the 2020 election, is pursuing a pardon for the rapper Prakazrel Michel, known as Pras, who was convicted in 2023 for foreign lobbying violations and other crimes related to a Malaysian embezzlement scheme. Allies of Mr. Michel, who is Black, have argued to Trump administration officials that he was treated more harshly by the Biden Justice Department than white associates who were implicated in connection with the case. A spokeswoman for Mr. Michel suggested that argument would resonate with Ms. Johnson, asserting that she 'understands more than anyone the gross injustices embedded in our criminal justice system.' Ms. Johnson did not respond to a request for comment.
