I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.

The National Constitution Center is the only

institution in America chartered by Congress to disseminate information

about the US Constitution on a nonpartisan basis. And in this episode we discuss presidential pardons the

Constitution and the rule of law. President Trump recently announced that

he would pardon Sheriff Joe Arpeo an Arizona sheriff who was found guilty of

criminal contempt for his interrogation methods with illegal immigrants. The

pardon sparked a wave of debate over the separation of powers and the Constitution.

Joining us to discuss the constitutional scope of the pardon power are two of America's

leading scholars of the pardon power.

Margaret Love is an attorney who specializes in executive clevency, sentencing, and

corrections policy.

She served as U.S. pardon attorney in the Department of Justice under President's George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

And Brian Kalt is Professor of Law and the Harold Norris faculty scholar at Michigan State University

College of Law.

He's written extensively on presidential pardons and the appointments power,

and he is the author of constitutional cliffhangers,

a legal guide for presidents and their enemies.

Margaret, Brian, thank you so much for joining.

Good to be here.

Thanks for having us.

Let me begin with the crucial question of what the text of the Constitution says about the pardon power and how the framers of the Constitution originally understood it.

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