Loading summary
Transcript62 lines
- [00:02]
Liz Oyer
Someone from the Department of Justice called me to give me a heads up that there were two armed special deputy U.S. marshals on their way to my home to deliver me a letter warning me against testifying before members of Congress.
- [00:20]
Al Letson
Coming up on More to the Story, Former US Pardon attorney Liz Oyer talks about feeling threatened by the Trump administration after she was asked to testify on Capitol Hill about losing her job. She says she was fired for refusing to restore gun rights to actor Mel Gibson. Don't go anywhere.
- [00:42]
Cynthia
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Progress Prices vary based on how you buy.
- [01:05]
Mary Harris
The election has come and gone. Now we're in a new era. It can be easy to get discouraged, frustrated, but you can't afford not to pay attention. You need trustworthy, independent journalism to cut through the noise and hold power to account. I'm Mary Harris, host of What Next from Slate.com we are a daily news podcast with a kind of transparent, smart, yet tongue in cheek analysis you can only find at Slate. Follow and listen to what Next wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:45]
Al Letson
This is more to the story. I'm Al Edson. Back in January, as President Biden was leaving the Oval Office and President Trump was returning, the two men used the presidential pardon in sweeping, historic ways. Biden preemptively pardoned individuals he believed could face retribution from an incoming Trump administration. Trump granted clemency to more than 1500 people convicted of crimes related to the January 6th insurrection. But in the shadows sits a long backlog of thousands of other Americans also seeking clemency. For more than a century, the United States Pardon Attorney has advised presidents on which cases should get attention. Until recently, Liz Oyer was that attorney. Before her appointment in 2022, Liz was a longtime public defender. So for her, becoming the country's pardon attorney was a dream job. But that dream ended a couple months ago after she was handed an unusual task. Liz, thanks so much for coming in.
- [02:48]
Liz Oyer
Thanks for having me. Great to be here, Al.
- [02:50]
Al Letson
So in March, you were fired from your position as a U.S. pardon attorney. Can you talk to me about what happened?
- [02:57]
Liz Oyer
Well, I was a career employee of the Department of Justice, meaning I was not a political appointee. And I fully expected to be able to continue my work into the Trump administration. I was successful in keeping my job for the first two months or so of the new administration. But I was fired very unexpectedly, very abruptly on March 7 by the Deputy Attorney General. In the days leading up to my firing, I had been asked to assist, essentially sign off on what was a political favor for a friend of the President. I was asked to make a recommendation to the Attorney General that she reinstate the right to possess a firearm of Mel Gibson, an actor who was a friend of the president and had been appointed by the president to be some sort of ambassador to Hollywood. That's not something that was in the ordinary scope of my duties, nor is it something that I could do, because I simply didn't have enough information to conclude that Mr. Gibson is somebody who could safely own a firearm. He lost his right to possess a firearm under federal law after he was convicted of domestic violence, and he was seeking to have that right reinstated by the Justice Department. So I was asked to make that recommendation to the Attorney general, and I did not make that recommendation. And within a few hours, I was fired.
- [04:26]
Al Letson
And the way you were fired was pretty unprecedented. Can you lay that out?
- [04:32]
Liz Oyer
Well, I was fired in a three sentence memo that stated I was terminated effective immediately under Article 2 of the Constitution. I was given no explanation for my firing. And in fact, I never actually met Todd Blanche, the deputy Attorney General who signed off on the letter firing me.
- [04:52]
Al Letson
You were invited to testify in early April at a congressional hearing arranged by Democrats about Trump's treatment of the doj.
- [05:01]
Liz Oyer
Yes, I was asked by members of Congress to testify before what was called a spotlight hearing. It was a hearing that was hosted by Democratic members of both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, and I was asked to testify about the circumstances of my firing. That testimony took place on April 7, exactly a month after I was fired.
- [05:25]
Al Letson
And how did the administration take to the idea that you were going to be testifying?
- [05:29]
Liz Oyer
Well, the Friday night before my testimony, which was scheduled to take place on a Monday, I received a call from the Department of Justice advising me. And this was someone who I don't think was supposed to be giving me this heads up, but someone from the Department of Justice called me to give me a heads up that there were two armed special deputy U.S. marshals on their way to my home to deliver me a letter warning me against testifying before members of Congress. That happened late Friday night, and I was eventually able to negotiate a resolution where those officers were called off and did not come to my home after I shared that my teenager was at home alone and that it would be very upsetting for my child to see these armed law enforcement officers show up at my home between 9 and 10 o'clock at night.
- [06:27]
Al Letson
I mean, do you feel like that was an intimidation tactic?
- [06:30]
Liz Oyer
It certainly was. Intended or. Well, I don't know what the intent was. It certainly felt like it was an attempt to display the power of the Department of Justice and to make me afraid of giving my testimony, to make me afraid of telling the truth about the circumstances leading up to my termination.
- [06:54]
Al Letson
And yet you still testified.
- [06:56]
Liz Oyer
I did. I felt like it was especially important after that incident that I show up and that I go forward with my testimony because I did not want to set the precedent that those types of tactics could be effective in chilling people from speaking the truth about what's going on in the Department of Justice.
- [07:16]
Al Letson
Let's hear a bit of your testimony.
- [07:18]
Liz Oyer
The letter was a warning to me about the risks of testifying here today. But I am here because I will not be bullied into concealing the ongoing corruption and abuse of power at the Department of Justice. DOJ is entrusted with keeping us safe, upholding the rule of law, and protecting our civil rights. It is not a personal favor bank for the president. Its career employees are not the president's personal debt collectors.
- [07:50]
Al Letson
You also talked about the attempt to intimidate you by sending armed marshals to your house. How did lawmakers react to that?
- [07:59]
Liz Oyer
Well, I think everybody was shocked that the Department of Justice had gone to such lengths to prevent me from speaking the truth about my own experience and the circumstances leading up to my own firing. I haven't had the opportunity to talk with others about how this felt to them, others who worked in the Department of Justice. But I can only imagine that other individuals who might be thinking about coming forward and speaking up against the abuses of power by this administration are deterred from doing so, seeing the tactics that the leadership of the department are using to prevent people from speaking out.
- [08:46]
Al Letson
Coming up, Liz calls out the administration on her TikTok for squandering what she estimates is almost a billion dollars just from pardoning white collar criminals.
- [08:57]
Liz Oyer
So Trump came into office and started pardoning people who owed tens of millions and some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution to their victims, effectively wiping out those judgments and ensuring that those victims had no recourse to get that money back through the criminal process.
- [09:19]
Al Letson
But before we get to that, we are a couple months into our new show and I am so happy you have come along for the ride. So I'm going to ask you for a favor. Tell your friends about us Come on, make it Facebook official. We go together. While public media is under a threat, we are still here reporting the stories that are important to you and feel free to give us a rating and review and help others discover the award winning reporting from Reveal. Okay, back in a moment with more. L' Zawyer.
- [09:58]
Cynthia
Lamont Jones world shatters when his young cousin dies in custody just weeks after entering prison. The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story. Grief turns to frustration as Lamont faces an impossible choice. Accept the lies or risk everything to uncover the truth. From Wondery comes Death county, pa. A chilling story of corruption, cover ups and one man's relentless pursuit of justice. Follow Death County Pa. On the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [10:30]
N/A
This program is brought to you by iPass. I pass works around the world to protect reproductive freedom because everyone deserves the ability to make decisions about their body and their future. When reproductive health care is available, accessible and affordable, people and communities thrive. Right now, our fundamental rights are being threatened. For more than 50 years, I pass has resisted and persisted and we need your support. Join our global movement. Donate today to double your impact and support reproductive freedom. A generous iPass supporter has offered to match donations up to $50,000 from new supporters. Go to ipas.org resist. Visit www.ipas.org resist.
- [11:23]
Mary Harris
Hi there, this is Cynthia, senior radio editor at Reveal. The ads you hear are an important part of our funding model, but the truth is they only cover a tiny fraction of what it costs to produce this show. And that's where you come in. You count on us to deliver riveting investigations every week. Can we count on you? Please donate today. Just text the word give to 88857 reveal. That's 888-577-3832 or visit revealnews.org donate and thank you.
- [12:09]
Al Letson
This is more to the story. I'm Al Letson, and I'm talking with former U.S. pardon attorney Liz Oyer. So, Liz, let's get into how the federal pardon system works. Okay, so the way I understand it, the president has the power to issue pardons. So what's the role of the Department of Justice?
- [12:27]
Liz Oyer
The Constitution gives the president essentially unfettered discretion to grant clemency to whomever he chooses. But the role that the Department of Justice has historically played is to try to ensure that the clemency process is accessible to everyone and to make recommendations on behalf of members of the public that are consistent and uphold principles of justice.
- [12:51]
Al Letson
So what's the process if somebody wants to apply for a pardon?
- [12:55]
Liz Oyer
Well, in normal times, there is an application process that is run through the Department of Justice. There are forms that are available to fill out to provide personal information that helps us to make an informed evaluation of whether you're a good candidate for clemency. We distribute those forms widely among incarcerated people because about 80% of the population applying for clemency are people who are currently serving prison sentences. So those application forms are available throughout the Bureau of Prisons to people serving sentences and to the general public. You'd fill out the application. The application would be reviewed and investigated by the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and ultimately a recommendation would be prepared that would go to the President for his final decision.
- [13:44]
Al Letson
Yeah. So we've done some stories on pardons in the past, and my recollection from those stories is that the list of people who want a pardon is humongous.
- [13:56]
Liz Oyer
The list is quite long. The Department of Justice typically gets a few thousand applications per year, and depending on the pace of decisions by the President, those applications can start to pile up. When I became pardon attorney In April of 2022, there were over 18,000 applications pending, which means 18,000 people who were waiting for answers from the President about their applications.
- [14:26]
Al Letson
So the Trump administration comes in, and if anything, President Trump is a disruptor of federal systems. How did it change when President Trump came into office?
- [14:39]
Liz Oyer
Well, one thing that changed almost immediately is that the Office of the Pardon Attorney was sidelined in the process. Traditionally, the office would have several points of contact in the White House, and we would be in close coordination to ensure that we were reviewing clemency applications in a way that was consistent with the President's priorities and to ensure that the President had the ability to receive and review the applications that we were recommending. That broke down really pretty immediately when the change in administrations occurred and clemencies started being issued on day one, but without any involvement from the Office of the Pardon Attorney.
- [15:24]
Al Letson
So since you were let go, you started a TikTok account named Lawyer Oyer where you have really gone after the administration. And in one video, you ran the numbers that and said the federal government had lost out on recovering a huge amount of money by granting pardons for white collar crimes. Tell me how that's possible.
- [15:44]
Liz Oyer
The President has the ability to grant a couple of different types of clemency. One type that is commonly granted is a commutation of sentence, which is essentially a reduction of a sentence, and that can apply to any part of the sentence. So commutations are generally sought by people who are in prison, and they're seeking a reduction of their prison sentence. Another type of clemency that the President can grant is a full pardon. And a pardon essentially wipes away the conviction in all aspects of the sentence. It's forgiveness from the President for a crime that one has been convicted of. Typically, pardons are reserved for people who have served their entire sentence. If they owed any money, they've generally paid back the money before they would be considered for a full pardon. And in normal times, you know, that pardons were reserved for a select few people who had really demonstrated good conduct since their conviction and paid their debt to society. When Trump came into office, he began granting full pardons to people who had not even served their sentence. And his pardons not only wiped out any sentence of imprisonment, but also any financial penalties that were part of the sentence for the crime. That includes what's called restitution, which is a mandatory part of a sentence for any financial crime that requires the person who's convicted to pay back any money that is owed to victims of the crime. So Trump came into office and started pardoning people who owed tens of millions and in some cases, hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution to their victims, effectively wiping out those judgments and ensuring that those victims had no recourse to get that money back through the criminal process.
- [17:37]
Al Letson
So, effectively, they got to keep that money.
- [17:40]
Liz Oyer
Yes, yes. There's one individual who's a good example of this. His name is Trevor Milton. He started a company called Nikola, which was supposedly going to build the world's first electric powered semi truck. And his company turned out to be a massive fraud. But in the meantime, Milton had become a billionaire, building this company and raising money from other people. Those people were out hundreds of millions of dollars. The Department of Justice was asking that Milton be ordered to repay his victims a total of almost $700 million. And before he had repaid a cent of that money, Trump swooped in and granted Milton a full pardon. Which means that whatever money Milton earned, he can keep, and whatever money his victims lost is just gone.
- [18:34]
Al Letson
What was the morale like in your department? As the lawyers who work on this stuff day in and day out are watching the Trump administration do whatever they want.
- [18:47]
Liz Oyer
Being cut out of the process entirely was very demoralizing for the staff of the office. We had a lot of cases in the pipeline of people who had been waiting their turn, people who had gone through the ordinary process, and people who had been fully vetted and recommended by the office for this type of relief. Those are people who lack political connections to the White House. They are people who lack the money to hire lawyers and lobbyists to get their applications to the front of the line. And it just seemed massively unjust that people were jumping to the front of the line based on political connections and wealth that they were able to spend to get that special access.
- [19:36]
Al Letson
You've now been replaced by Ed Martin, who was not only a Stop the Steal activist, but defended January 6th insurrectionists in court. What do you know about him?
- [19:46]
Liz Oyer
Well, Ed Martin is someone who was initially nominated to serve as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. And his nomination failed because Republicans found that he was someone who had views that were so extreme that he was not qualified to serve in that role. He's somebody who has closely affiliated himself ideologically with President Trump. And that is especially concerning in a role like pardon attorney because it has always been a non political role. The position of pardon attorney is actually among a select few positions in the Department of Justice that is designated a career reserved position position, meaning that it cannot be filled by a political appointee. The idea is to ensure that the president is receiving neutral and non political advice about the use of his clemency power. Ed Martin certainly is not the person who is going to deliver that type of advice.
- [20:46]
Al Letson
Yeah, he's been saying that he's going to re examine the Biden preemptive pardons. What are your thoughts on that?
- [20:55]
Liz Oyer
Well, once a pardon is issued, it's final. There's no way to undo it, regardless of what we may think about its soundness in retrospect. The same goes for Trump's pardons, Biden's pardons, the pardons issued by any president. You know, we could have conversations for days about whether the decision making was good or bad, but the fact is that the pardons are final once they are issued.
- [21:24]
Al Letson
So let's put it in stone. Presidential pardons are final. But if we've learned anything from the Trump administration, it's that legal precedent often, I don't know, doesn't hold a lot of weight with them. Should we be concerned that they might try and find a way to rescind President Biden's pardons?
- [21:44]
Liz Oyer
I think that you're right to be concerned about that. This administration has certainly shown that they don't feel constrained by the typical norms, and they could certainly try to rescind pardons that have been issued. In that case, it would really be up to the courts to enforce the law. We're relying on the courts in a whole lot of different domains to push back against overreach by the political administration and to ensure that our system of laws remains in force. And this is another area where if the administration tried to rescind pardons, the courts would really have to step in and and declare the pardons enforceable.
- [22:30]
Al Letson
What does all this say about how the Trump administration is running the doj?
- [22:34]
Liz Oyer
It's always been the case that our system of justice strives for fairness and is imperfect. That's something that I've seen up close as a public defender, the imperfections in the system of justice. But there have been some basic principles that have always guided us, even if in some cases they've been aspirational. And this administration, the leadership of the department, seems to be walking away from some of those ideals and seems to be affirmatively embracing the idea that the benefits of government can be doled out in a way that is unequal and can be doled out in a way that favors political friends and allies. And the flip side of that is that the powers of government can be used against people who are not politically aligned with the administration. Those have been things that have always, across parties, you know, there's always been some agreement that those are not good things, but this administration seems to be embracing those as acceptable ways of doing business, which is very deeply concerning.
- [23:49]
Al Letson
As someone who's worked in the legal system for years, what's next for you? How do you push back against an administration and a Justice Department that many would say are abusing its power?
- [24:00]
Liz Oyer
From my perspective, all I can do is to speak up about what I'm seeing and sound the alarm about the things that I'm finding concerning. There are a lot of things going on right now, and it's hard for us to keep up with all of the things that this administration is doing that should cause us concern. So I'm trying to focus on what's happening with pardons, what's happening inside the Department of Justice, and use my voice to educate others who may not be lawyers about why those issues should concern them and to try to find ways to shed light on some of the things that are happening behind the scenes in our justice system that are very damaging and destructive.
- [24:45]
Al Letson
Liz Oyer, thank you so much for coming in and talking to me today.
- [24:49]
Liz Oyer
Thanks for having me.
- [24:53]
Al Letson
That was former U.S. pardon attorney Liz Oy. You can find her on TikTok at Lawyer Oyer. That's o y e r. We reached out to the Department of Justice for comment on Liz's firing and received this statement from the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanch, without hearing our interview. The statement called her allegations about her firing erroneous and said her decision to voice those allegations is, quote, in direct violation of her ethical duties as an attorney and is a shameful distraction from our critical mission to prosecute violent crime, enforce our nation's immigration laws, and make America safe again. If you want to learn more about the U.S. pardon system, check out our reveal episode, all the President's Pardons, where we look at the politics of clemency and hear an interview with former President Gerald Ford about his controversial pardon of Richard Nixon. Lastly, just a reminder that we are listener supported. That means means listeners like you, you can help us thrive by making a gift today. Just go to revealnews.org gift again, that's revealnews.org gift and thank you. This episode was produced by Josh sanburn and Cara McGurk Allison theme music and engineering helped by Fernando my man Yo Arruda and Jay Breezy. Mr. Jim Briggs, I'm Al Letson. And you know, let's do this again next week. This is more to the story I.
- [26:32]
Mary Harris
Just found out there are more than 120 million people worldwide forcibly displaced from their homes.
- [26:38]
Liz Oyer
More than 120 million people? That's hard to imagine. That many people I know, they say.
- [26:45]
Mary Harris
It'S more than Texas, New York and Florida combined.
- [26:48]
Liz Oyer
So heartbreaking.
- [26:49]
Mary Harris
What can we do to help?
- [26:51]
Cynthia
The UN Refugee agency is on the ground providing food, shelter and medical care to those urgently in need. You can give today@unrefugees.org donation.
- [27:03]
Al Letson
From PRX.