Trump’s Repeat Pardon Sparks Debate Over Clemency Power (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The Trump administration announced new presidential pardons today, among them someone who already got clemency in the president's first term. Back in 2019, Adriana Comber Comberos was sentenced to 26 months in prison after being convicted in a scheme to sell fake five hour energy drinks. President Trump commuted that sentence in early 2021. Then in 2024, she was convicted again, along with her brother, in connection with a new fraud involving the illegal resale of wholesale goods in a scheme the FBI said netted them millions. Both were found guilty on eight counts. Last year, she was sentenced to more than a year in prison. This week, the president released her from prison for a second time. Back with us is former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin, whose latest book is The Pardon, the Politics of Presidential Mercy. Jeff, we don't have a picture of her to show, but I mean, I guess he can do anything in terms of pardons. A president has the right to pardon anybody, right?

[00:00:59] Speaker 2: It's one of the few absolute powers in the Constitution. It can't be challenged in court. It can't be challenged in Congress. If a president wants to pardon someone, he can just do it, and that's the end of the story. You know, I think what's worth noting about this crazy second pardon is that it was a case brought by the Justice Department during the Biden years. And one way to get a pardon, it seems clear, because the president has granted so many of these in his first year of his second term, is to say, well, this was the Biden Justice Department and it was unfair, but you know, these are cases brought by career prosecutors. And, you know, the idea that this fraudster got away once with a crime, but a second time, that seems to me unprecedented in any histories of pardons that I'm aware of.

[00:01:53] Speaker 1: Well, and they're saying that she was targeted a second time by law enforcement because she got clemency the first time from Trump. But I mean, is there a modern precedent for a person who's gotten clemency committing a new crime in the same variety, the same sort of fraud variety, being sentenced again and then being granted, I mean, do you know if this is ever happening, being granted clemency?

[00:02:19] Speaker 2: Absolutely not. There is one person, there is one person who got a commutation from one president and a pardon from the next. Patty Hearst, the notorious, famous Patty Hearst, who was convicted in a bank robbery after she was kidnapped. She had her sentence commuted by Jimmy Carter and then later she was pardoned long after she got out of prison by Bill Clinton, but it was the same crime. And she was in jail twice. Right, I mean, what's extraordinary is you would think that having gotten the incredible gift of a commutation and out of prison, this person would have said, you know, I don't think I'm gonna commit any more crimes. But apparently she did decide to commit more crimes. But amazingly, she then got, she got out of jail again. Well, I never heard of anything like it, but this is how it's going now.

[00:03:15] Speaker 1: Two of the woman's lawyers apparently had ties to President Trump's orbit or people in President Trump's orbit. And there have been other cases in which attorneys had sort of vague connections to people in, you know, in the Trump world. I mean, is that, is that a telltale sign?

[00:03:35] Speaker 2: Well, absolutely. I mean, this, you know, these pardons from the president over the course of the first year, a lot of the same lawyers are recurring and several of them have either worked for President Trump or worked on his criminal case. Several of the other pardons come to people who have family members who gave millions of dollars to super PACs associated with President Trump. But it's also worth noting that because of the Supreme Court's decision in Trump versus United States, it's completely impossible for the president to be prosecuted for any sort of bribery in connection with pardons. Because the Supreme Court said official actions are off limits and pardons are official actions.

[00:04:24] Speaker 3: The president's unprecedented and unapologetic or shameless use of the pardon power to reward people who support him, people who have been convicted of sleaze and corruption. Well, that clemency continued unabated today with as far as we can tell, the only apparent MAGA supporter to ever receive this clemency from President Trump, twice, Adriana Camberos. In 2019, during Trump's first term, she was sentenced to 26 months in prison, convicted in a scheme to sell millions of dollars worth of a fake G drink, and Trump commuted that sentence on his way out the door in 2021. In 2024, she was convicted again in a different scheme. The New York Times reports that Camberos enlisted the help of lawyers connected to President Trump, including one who represented Rudy Giuliani in his defamation case. And once again, President Trump pardoned her. Her attorney tells CNN, quote, Ms. Camberos was wrongfully convicted. She's home now and very grateful to the president, the White House, and Alice Johnson for their support. Also pardoned today, a banker facing charges, including felony bribery. The Times reports that his daughter just happened to have donated $3.5 million to the MAGA, Inc. Super PAC. What a coincidence. Here now is the panel. Notice White House correspondent Jasmine Wright and Wall Street Journal reporter Maggie Severns. Am I pronouncing that correctly? Okay, thank you so much. It's your first time here, so I just wanted to make sure. So the former Puerto Rico governor, Wanda Vasquez, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations last summer, is also expected to get a pardon, according to a White House official. Jasmine, you have covered what happens behind the scenes before President Trump offers these clemencies, pardons, commutations. One key component seems to be people having FaceTime with the president.

[00:06:08] Speaker 4: Yeah, so much of who can get a pardon right now in this new administration is based on who you know, and that could be somebody close to the president. That could be somebody close to the folks who are put in these pardons office, like Ed Martin, Alice Marie Johnson, who is a pardons are, somebody close to somebody like Daring Warrington, basically trying to get their cases pushed perhaps by lobbyists, perhaps by people who used to work for Trump or in the kind of orbit, in front of the folks who are making these decisions and ultimately bringing the cases to Trump. Susie Wiles is very much so involved in what cases Trump is looking at. And so it is incumbent upon people to really try to push their cases, which aren't going through the normal DOJ process, right? We know that- There is a pardons office. Yes, there is a pardons office who typically does this work. People apply through the website. These are folks who have typically gone to prison or have served some of their time and admitted fault in these ways and are then put into that pardon system. They're not going through that process anymore. They're really kind of going to people in this kind of transactional way. And so a lot of it is who you know. And some of these people have actually gotten themselves in front of the president, like at Mar-a-Lago or other places to plead their case. And one official told me, like, yes, that has happened, but then the president will say, okay, go talk to this person, go talk to this person. But again, it's who you know, not necessarily that you were sorry for something that you did.

[00:07:31] Speaker 3: And Mackie, this really creates a cognitive dissonance when you have President Trump railing against fraud in Minnesota and then pardoning fraudsters, picking up Maduro for drug trafficking, bombing those drug trafficking boats, pardoning the former president of Honduras for drug trafficking. I mean, there's no consistency.

[00:07:49] Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it really underscores. The Journal has done some reporting on how the president sees himself as someone who can make a judgment or be an arbiter of justice, right? As opposed to going through DOJ, going through someone else's process. Sometimes he'll see these cases and decide he thinks someone should be pardoned, right? And so it's more, he sees himself as someone who is capable of delivering that.