U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has a distinctly modern
problem, reported Bloomberg. The president, judging by his tweets, could try to pardon people in
his circle even before prosecutors charge anyone with a crime.
Mueller’s all-star team of prosecutors, with expertise in
money laundering and foreign bribery, has an answer to that. He’s Michael
Dreeben, a bookish career government lawyer with more than 100 Supreme Court
appearances under his belt.
Acting as Mueller’s top legal counsel, Dreeben has been
researching past pardons and determining what, if any, limits exist, according
to a person familiar with the matter. Dreeben’s broader brief is to make sure
the special counsel’s prosecutorial moves are legally airtight. That could
include anything from strategizing on novel interpretations of criminal law to
making sure the recent search warrant on ex-campaign adviser Paul Manafort’s
home would stand up to an appeal.
"He’s seen every criminal case of any consequence in
the last 20 years," said Kathryn Ruemmler of Latham & Watkins LLP, who
served as White House counsel under President Barack Obama. "If you wanted
to do a no-knock warrant, he’d be a great guy to consult with to determine if
you were exposing yourself.”
Dreeben has begun working on legal issues as a
counselor to Mueller but is also retaining some of his solicitor general work
for the sake of continuity, according to Peter Carr, a spokesman for the
special counsel’s office. Carr declined to elaborate on Dreeben’s work with
Mueller or make Dreeben available for comment.
Preemptive pardons are a distinct possibility now that
current and former Trump advisers are under Mueller’s scrutiny. Trump himself
has tweeted that everyone agrees the U.S. president has “complete power to
pardon." Some of those kinds of executive moves have been well studied,
including Gerald Ford’s swift pardon of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton’s
exoneration of fugitive financier Marc Rich. But the legal territory is largely
uncharted over pardons of a president’s own campaign workers, family members or
even himself -- and how prosecutors’ work would then be affected.
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