LEILA FADEL, HOST:
When President-elect Trump declared victory, he vowed to govern by a simple motto.
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DONALD TRUMP: Promises made, promises kept. We're going to keep our promises.
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FADEL: Each day this week on MORNING EDITION, we'll examine his promises. We start today with his vow to pardon hundreds of people who were convicted after attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Legal scholar Kim Wehle is author of the book "Pardon Power." She joined me to dig deeper into the presidential powers granted by the American Constitution and a recent decision from the Supreme Court.
KIM WEHLE: The Constitution in Article 2 just says that the President has the power to grant reprieves and pardons, and it puts no express limits on a pardon. And although there's been some Supreme Court case law putting some constraints on the pardon, there is no law that would limit Donald Trump's ability to pardon the people who participated in the January 6 insurrection and ended up embroiled in the criminal justice system.
FADEL: So another thing that Trump promised was to fire the special prosecutor investigating him - Jack Smith - right away. And the investigations are being wound down now, as we understand it from the Department of Justice. But the Supreme Court decision that anything he does as president would be subject to presidential immunity. What does that mean?
WEHLE: So I think what it means is that Donald Trump could direct his attorney general to abuse the massive power of the Department of Justice and law enforcement. So that's No. 1. The second is the pardon. Of course, the Supreme Court held that if the president uses his official power - law enforcement, surveillance power, investigative power, prosecutorial power - that kind of power cannot be subject to the rule of law.
But the immunity ruling only applies to the president. It doesn't apply to people around the president. So he would have to get them to commit crimes on his behalf. And the way to do that would be to promise a pardon and then actually pardon them. So the pardon, when you add that with this immunity for the President's illegal acts, so long as they use - he uses his official power, it's sort of a recipe for, you know, a massive criminal enterprise in the White House.
FADEL: And he has said on the campaign trail that he would go after his political and personal opponents.
WEHLE: That is what he's said for quite a while. And, you know, law is all about incentives and disincentives. And we have laws in place to disincentivize behavior we don't like. We have stop signs to disincentivize driving in a way that's dangerous. But people will blow through those limits if there's no consequence. And right now, what the Supreme Court has done by injecting immunity into a Constitution that does not have it is to change the incentives for presidents to basically lift any threat of consequences for abusing the massive power of the office.
And of course, the framers of the Constitution understood, as Madison said, if men were angels, we would not need government. The rules are now lifted. This is a president who has promised with vitriol to prosecute and go after people who he believes have prosecuted him in unfair ways. So I think we can take him at his word, or at least we should be prepared for that.
FADEL: Kim Wehle wrote the book "Pardon Power: How The Pardon System Works And Why?" Thank you so much for your time, Kim.
WEHLE: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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