A former pardon attorney at the Department of Justice said during a podcast interview on Monday that she is stunned by President Donald Trump's use of the presidential pardon power.
Liz Oyer, the first former public defender to become a DOJ pardon attorney, discussed Trump's recent pardons on a new episode of "Bulwark Takes" with Sam Stein, managing editor of The Bulwark. She argued that Trump seems to be using the pardon power in ways that are "unprecedented" and "damaging to the rule of law."
Stein said he was "gobsmacked" by a few of Trump's recent pardons, one of which was Chengpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange.
He added that Trump's admission on '60 Minutes' that he didn't know Zhao was "a little crazy."
"Did that blow you away, or are you not blown away at this point?" Stein asked Oyer.
"Absolutely stunning," Oyer said. "The self-deing aspect of this is really striking. This is somebody who facilitated a $2 billion investment into Trump's family cryptocurrency company, and as a result of that, he seems to have gotten a presidential pardon despite the fact that he doesn't meet any of the standards for granting a pardon."
"So that was truly stunning, and then even more stunning to hear the president claim on national television that he doesn't know who this is," she continued. "It was just a very bizarre moment."
Stein also mentioned other Republicans who have received pardons, like former New York Rep. George Santos, who was convicted of several financial crimes, and a sheriff from Cullpepper County, Virginia, named Scott Jenkins, who was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on corruption charges earlier this year.
Oyer said there is one thing that ties these cases together.
"Trump pardons a lot of people in whom he sees something of himself," she said.