LEILA FADEL, HOST:
In the final hours of President Biden's term, he issued preemptive pardons for members and staff of the bipartisan select committee that investigated the attack four years ago on the U.S. Capitol. The pardons extended to the Capitol police officers who testified, along with officials who served under Trump but became vocal critics - former Joint Chiefs chair, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, now retired from the National Institutes of Health. Biden says even though they did nothing wrong and would eventually be exonerated of wrongdoing, he took the extraordinary step to protect them from the next president's retribution. That was from his statement. Both Milley and Fauci publicly thanked him for the pardons.
Also on that pardon list is Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who serves as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee and was a member of the select committee that investigated the January 6 attack. Good morning, and thank you for being on the program.
JAMIE RASKIN: Hey. Good morning.
FADEL: So are you going to accept the pardon?
RASKIN: Well, it's a sign of our strange times that public officials and public servants have to be pardoned just for doing their jobs and upholding their oath of office and upholding the law. So we just learned about this about an hour ago. And so we're all digesting the news at this point.
FADEL: Yeah. Have you made the decision, though, on whether to accept it or not?
RASKIN: Well, I don't even know whether that's a choice, and I'm going to consult lawyers about that.
FADEL: OK.
RASKIN: It's not clear to me that a pardon is something you reject or you accept. I think it is a statement of the law, but I'm just not sure where that sits.
FADEL: Well, I'm asking because in the past, we'd heard Senator Adam Schiff, a member of your party, say that these pardons would set the wrong precedent - former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who was on the select committee with you, who said he didn't want and wouldn't accept a pardon. He said taking the pardon would make a person look guilty of something. Did the president overstep with these pardons?
RASKIN: No, look, obviously, it's a strange thing for pardons to issue for people who've just done their job and have not committed any offense or wrongdoing. On the other hand, you know, President Trump has been making very explicit threats against the chair of our committee, Bennie Thompson, and against Liz Cheney, the vice chair of our committee. I think we have a lot of protection from the speech and debate clause against prosecution. But I can see people being of a mixed mind about whether or not a pardon helps.
The key thing for me is that going forward, we are going to be able to stand up strong for the Constitution, for the rule of law, and defend the rights of the people. And so to the extent that it removes a distraction, then I think, you know, it seems fine. But to me, given that the speech and debate clause already immunizes us against federal and state prosecution, as well as civil lawsuits for our work as legislators, it doesn't seem to me to be that big a deal.
FADEL: Now, I spoke to Congressman Byron Donalds earlier, a representative from Florida in the House. And he, like other Republicans, said he was really concerned. I want to play what he said about the pardons.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
BYRON DONALDS: What this really demonstrates is the fact that they knew that they were doing things that were wrong. No. 1, you're not allowed to destroy evidence in a congressional hearing. That is against federal law. So by Joe Biden providing these pardons to those staffers and, frankly, the members of those committee, he once again is subverting the law.
FADEL: What's your reaction to that and that insinuation?
RASKIN: It's absolutely absurd. We destroyed no evidence, and all of the evidence from all of our committees is available to everybody online. And nobody has laid a glove on the report of the January 6 committee. It's a more than 800-page report, and nobody has contradicted a single factual conclusion that our bipartisan committee produced. So I imagine it's absurd rhetoric like that that impelled the president to make his decision.
You know, we have got to move on from this. There was an attempted violent insurrection against the government and an attempt to overthrow a presidential election. Our committee report definitively and exhaustively reported on everything that happened. Nobody has contradicted any of the facts in there. And the idea that they're going to, you know, try to prosecute Liz Cheney or Bennie Thompson or any of us is just absurd.
FADEL: Now, the new administration comes in today. The Republicans control the House by a thin minority, also control the Senate. How do you see Democrats role in this moment? And how do you find common ground with Republicans?
RASKIN: Yeah, and the Republicans have the slenderest majority in the House in many decades. It's going to end up being 217-to-215, which means they can afford to lose only one vote. And I think they've already effectively lost several, at least as guaranteed votes for what they want to do.
Look, I think it's a time of a lot of ideological fluidity and complexity on the right wing in America. And there are huge conflicts that have opened up between, you know, people like Steve Bannon and the tech broligarchs (ph), as they call them now, who have a completely different position on a whole range of issues. And so I think there are ways we can get together on the Judiciary Committee, where I'm now the ranking member. I'm hopeful that Chairman Jordan and I can work together again on reviving the Press Act, which was legislation to protect reporters against compulsory production of their confidential sources and notes. We sponsored that together. It passed unanimously in the committee and in the House. It faltered in the Senate, but I'm hoping we get that through. I think we should ban individual stock trading in Congress. I think we can get together on that.
And I think, look, Donald Trump is very proud of the fact that he won not just in the Electoral College but in the popular vote by more than 3 million votes. Like, I know Joe Biden was proud that he won by more than 7 million votes when he beat Trump four years ago. Why don't we use this as an opportunity to move to a national popular vote for president? Let's get rid of the Electoral College, which is an accident waiting to happen all the time. So I think, in fact, there are lots of things we could do working together over the next few years.
FADEL: And thank you for correcting me. I misspoke. The Republicans, obviously, have a thin lead in the House. Democratic Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, thank you for your time.
RASKIN: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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