Speaker 1: The question that's been asked time and time again is
Speaker 1: will President Trump try to pardon people who could incriminate
Speaker 1: him before Special Counsel Robert Mueller even has a chance
Speaker 1: to charge anyone with a crime. Mueller has an all
Speaker 1: star team of prosecutors with expertise and everything from money
Speaker 1: laundering to foreign bribery to organize crime. One career government lawyer,
Speaker 1: Michael Dreban, has been acting as Mueller's top legal counsel,
Speaker 1: and driven has been researching past pardons and determining what,
Speaker 1: if any limits exist. According to a person familiar with
Speaker 1: the matter, joining me as Gregg Farrell, Bloomberg News investigative
Speaker 1: reporter who has written about Dreben, so, Greg starts with
Speaker 1: telling us a little bit about him. He's a career
Speaker 1: government lawyer in unusual these days. Absolutely in a team
Speaker 1: of people Mueller's team who are fairly well known for
Speaker 1: previous prosecutions, he's very much unknown. He might be the
Speaker 1: most talented or experienced, uh federal criminal law lawyer that
Speaker 1: you've never heard of, because he's been basically cooped up
Speaker 1: in the office of the Solicitor General and in that
Speaker 1: work most of his work as a pellet he helps
Speaker 1: present arguments for appeals courts when you know federal prosecutors
Speaker 1: have rulings against them across the country. And most famously
Speaker 1: he is like somewhat known in the circle of people
Speaker 1: who arguing before the Supreme Court. He has argued on
Speaker 1: behalf of the government more than one hundred times over
Speaker 1: his thirty year career. So that's a significant you know,
Speaker 1: that's a significant fact. But that, as one person to
Speaker 1: drive described it to me, that's only the tip of
Speaker 1: the iceberg. His real expertise is that he's sort of
Speaker 1: the nerve center of almost every significant criminal prosecution across
Speaker 1: the country, especially those that go wrong or those that
Speaker 1: end up in a in a negative result that a
Speaker 1: local prosecutor wants to appeal, they have to go to him.
Speaker 1: And he doesn't just automatically say yeah, let's appeal every
Speaker 1: negative decision. He picks and chooses the ones which will
Speaker 1: basically conform or end up with the best possible result
Speaker 1: for the overall state of criminal law, rather than just
Speaker 1: fighting willie neely against every last one. So he's a strategist,
Speaker 1: among other things, quite a thinker. So there have been
Speaker 1: preemptive pardons before the most famous example is Gerald Ford's
Speaker 1: partner of Richard Nixon. What do we know about pardons
Speaker 1: of this kind that we're looking at, or supposing a
Speaker 1: president's pardon, preemptive pardon of campaign workers or family members. Well,
Speaker 1: the the the area of preemptive pardons is actually relatively obscure.
Speaker 1: As the President himself has said, you know, the president's
Speaker 1: powers to pardon are almost without limit. They're not completely
Speaker 1: without limit, but they're they're there. You know, his discretion is,
Speaker 1: you know, in most cases is absolute. However, there are
Speaker 1: certain areas where, especially when if there were ever a
Speaker 1: movement in Congress to impeach the president, where he would
Speaker 1: not be able to, you know, issue certain pardons in
Speaker 1: those circumstances. But it's it's terror incognita, uh, to the
Speaker 1: extent where you know what you know. Among the many
Speaker 1: things Driven is doing for Mueller's team is to look
Speaker 1: into and make sure that Muller's team is prepared for
Speaker 1: either the latest or best thinking on that subject. So
Speaker 1: he's doing legal research about it. Yes, he's basically he's
Speaker 1: a guy who almost always in his career has come
Speaker 1: in after the fact, after a prosecution, after a ruling
Speaker 1: in a district court, right, and he has to basically
Speaker 1: deal with what's left over if the prosecutor made a
Speaker 1: bad call on how to charge a case. Um, it's
Speaker 1: too late. Um. However, now he's in on the ground floor,
Speaker 1: so he can help Mueller's team and the prosecutors on
Speaker 1: his team with basically developed hone and make sure their
Speaker 1: theories prosecutor prosecutorial theories are air tight because you know
Speaker 1: they're going to be tested, you know, when if Mueller
Speaker 1: ever does anything or charges someone, there's going to be
Speaker 1: blowback in terms of you know, it's his politically motivated
Speaker 1: or is this a weak ruling? And the last thing
Speaker 1: Mulish team would need would be to find and sustain
Speaker 1: some kind of an adverse decision at a federal court.
Speaker 1: It would make him look bad. So dreaming is almost
Speaker 1: a guarantee that they will not, you know, get off
Speaker 1: the reservation or do anything that can be legally shot down. So,
Speaker 1: and because Mueller has a lot of aggressive prosecutors on
Speaker 1: his on his team from what I've I've been reading
Speaker 1: and seeing some of them in action. So is this
Speaker 1: is dreaming then his top person. It's to some extent
Speaker 1: he's a bit of the Consigliari. Right, he's the guy
Speaker 1: Mulla will turn to for advice. And you know he
Speaker 1: must have must Muller must have known him, uh, not
Speaker 1: only from his previous career ashead of the criminal division
Speaker 1: at the just Department, but also as head of the
Speaker 1: FBI for twelve years. So there's certainly a level of confidence,
Speaker 1: you know, in this guy in Michael Dribin's you know,
Speaker 1: encyclopedic knowledge of federal criminal law. So believe it or not,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's right. Not everything is cut and dried,
Speaker 1: you know. To win a case, um, and for that
Speaker 1: win to to basically stick in court through an appeal
Speaker 1: by a defendant, it's important to pick the right charge,
Speaker 1: how you charge your case. You know, we always see
Speaker 1: it once the trial starts and it's kind of too late,
Speaker 1: and you know they're either guilty or innocent. But so
Speaker 1: much of the art of prosecution is into is in
Speaker 1: the selection of the theory and the presentation of that
Speaker 1: and what will likely hold up under what I expect
Speaker 1: to be as I say, a lot of pushback just
Speaker 1: a few seconds here, so you have a yes or now,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen a legal team assembled on the
Speaker 1: prosecutors side like this or on the defense side. No,
Speaker 1: but not not many people have. This is highly unusual. Um.
Speaker 1: The thing that's most reminiscent of is the End Round
Speaker 1: Task Force from fifteen years ago. It's been it's been fascinating.
Speaker 1: Hope you'll come back and see us again. That's Greg
Speaker 1: Farrell at Bloomberg News, investigative reporter