When Government Lawyers Draw the Line

23:29And I knew that the second Trump administration was going to shut us down. They tried to in the first administration, and they did. And that's why I decided to leave the department and start a new organization called Justice Connection that kind of is an expansion of DOJ Gen and provides direct support to DOJ employees who are still there.

23:50Pamela Karlan:So Liz, when you became part of an attorney, what were your priorities? How did you pick the priorities you were going to have? So the priority was largely on the commutation side in terms of numbers. We had, when I became part an attorney, about over 18 ,000 applications pending from people around the country seeking clemency from the president. And most of those were people who were incarcerated, serving very lengthy sentences in many thousands of cases, people serving life sentences. And clemency was really the only possibility for release from incarceration before these folks died. died. And we got stacks and stacks of mail every single day from people in prisons, from their families, from sometimes counselors in prison facilities, really advocating for these folks in many cases.

24:42And the priority was to be able to address as many cases as possible and make as many recommendations for relief to deserving people as possible. That generally, generally, the focus was on people who were serving sentences that were longer than the sentence they would like they receive today, which due to some criminal justice reform legislation passed during Trump's first presidency, is many people. He passed a law called the First Step Act, which significantly reduced mandatory minimums for recidivist drug offenses, as well as for certain types of offenses involving the possession of firearms.

25:18And, you know, there are thousands of people applying for relief because they would not be sentenced to life in prison today, but they were subjected to a mandatory life sentence years ago. They've served decades of that sentence. They've demonstrated rehabilitation and they really have no avenue of relief through the courts because this law was not retroactive. So that was a huge priority for us was addressing as many of those cases as possible. It turned out that it was a bigger priority for me and my office than it was for the president under President Biden. And it was not a priority at all for the Trump administration when they came into office.

25:55My tenure lasted about seven weeks into Donald Trump's second term before I was very abruptly fired. But by then, by the time I was fired, the nature of the office and the mission that we were tasked with had changed completely and really shifted entirely away from making clemency recommendations to the president.

26:15Pamela Karlan:So I think it might be useful before I ask you a kind of follow up question on that for you to explain the difference between a commutation and a pardon. Yeah, that's a great question. So a commutation is a reduction in sentence, and it's typically a reduction in the imprisonment portion of a sentence only. A pardon is essentially forgiveness for a crime that has been committed. So commutations are usually granted to people who are still serving their sentence, and they don't erase the crime from your record. They don't forgive or excuse the crime. They just let you out of prison early. A pardon has the connotation of being forgiven for a crime, but that also does not expunge it from your record.

26:52Most people who are considered for pardons under the DOJ's longstanding guidelines are people who have served their entire sentence, paid all of their debts to society, including any debts that they might owe to victims of their crimes, and demonstrated very persuasive rehabilitation over a lengthy period of time in the community. So most people who get pardons have been out of prison and completed their sentence for at least a decade, in many cases significantly longer than that. And the collateral consequences that people continue to face, even when they're 20 years out from a criminal conviction, are very serious.

27:28People who are parents and grandparents often can't go to school events because the criminal conviction prohibits it. There are barriers to housing, to employment, to professional licensing. In many states, you can't be a barber or a cosmetologist if you have a criminal conviction. I mean, really all manner of employment can be affected. So for many people, a pardon is the only way of moving past some of those enduring collateral consequences from their conviction. Yeah.

27:56Pamela Karlan:And I just want to kind of highlight a couple of things there that you said, one of which is that generally people who were pardoned would have paid their debt to society. So, for example, if you were a white collar criminal and you had defrauded a bunch of people, the pardon wouldn't come to you until after you had repaid the people you had defrauded or the like. Yeah, that's right. Usually pardons are reserved for people who've committed lower level offenses as well. So historically, I'm not aware of any examples of people who've committed massive white collar fraud schemes receiving pardons.

28:33We've seen a lot of that under the second Trump administration and some under his first administration as well. But typically the profile of a person seeking a pardon would be somebody who committed a small dollar financial crime or a low level drug offense, a nonviolent type of crime and not a crime that caused significant financial losses to any victims.

28:53Pamela Karlan:Yeah, I mean, one of the things that's been so striking, there have been a couple of stories in the book, the Washington Post and the Times about this, is the number of people who got pardons after January 6th who have subsequently been arrested again for violent crimes or who are now arguing that the pardon should extend to crimes committed not exactly on January 6th and the like. And I mean, that's that's I think that's a big change. Yeah, the lack of any individualized vetting is a very big change. Historically, vetting has been an incredibly important part of the process. And in pardon cases, we would actually refer the case out to the FBI so they could conduct a full background investigation to ensure that this was really somebody who was suitable for that relief.

29:39that vetting is not happening anymore. And I've been keeping close tabs on what has happened with some of these folks who've received pardons and then committed new crimes. Many of them are individuals who are pardoned as a result of the January 6th pardon. And just in March of 2026, just last month, we saw three people back in court for very serious new crimes. There's one who was sentenced to prison for possessing over 100 ,000 images of child pornography. There's another who was sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing two minors and then trying to bribe them to keep quiet about the abuse.

30:15There was a third who was arrested for assaulting women on the D.C. metro system by he was filming himself stroking their hair from behind. It was very creepy. So, you know, I'm sure we've only seen the tip of the iceberg because this is three people in a single month out of that group that we're seeing back in court. And that is a real consequence that comes from not vetting the individuals who are getting pardoned.

30:38Pamela Karlan:Yeah, I mean, some of the people were even pardoned before they were convicted. Right. I mean, because it was and I think that was kind of a surprise. I mean, the last time we had a blanket pardon of that kind of sweep must have been after the Civil War. Well, and even there, it was a sort of smaller group of people. There have been pardon proclamations that other presidents have issued. There was one issued. There was the amnesty for those who evaded the draft was one after the Vietnam War. And then President Biden issued a pardon proclamation that pardoned possession of marijuana offenses, federal marijuana possession offenses.

31:16But that's a very different type of offense, because in those cases, there was literally not a single person at the time who was incarcerated for a marijuana possession offense. In most cases, those were offenses that involve citations that were given for possessing marijuana on federal property. So it's not unprecedented to have a blanket pardon. But what was different about this one was the fact that it grouped together disparate types of conduct, including conduct that involved violence, conduct that involved assaults against police officers, people who are at very different stages of legal proceedings.

31:47And it just pardoned everybody without any consideration of the victims of their crimes, the damage that they caused, or the danger that they would potentially pose to the community going forward based on their historical conduct. And that is something that we have not seen before. Yeah.

32:05Pamela Karlan:So I want to turn now to a kind of tension that runs through the stories that you've all kind of told here, which is about how do you decide whether to stay inside an institution or to leave an institution or to speak up inside an institution when you disagree with where it's going? Where would you like to start? I mean, to some extent, I didn't have a choice of deciding whether to stay inside or not. But if you as you were thinking about that in the in the first in the in the seven weeks, you know, in the in the still. Yeah, I did have some choices and I I made some choices along the way. And the choices that I made resulted in me getting fired.

32:47And I would make all the same choices today if I had to do it over again. When the new administration came into office, I was delusionally preparing to work with them on clemency priorities. I had come up with a lot of lists and priorities and memos of things that I thought they might be interested in, trying to continue the work of the First Step Act, which was enacted under Donald Trump's first presidency through clemency. And it all fell by the wayside very, very quickly. my office was essentially asked to shift focus to a program to restore firearm rights to individuals who had lost their right to own a firearm because of a criminal conviction, a criminal conviction, a felony conviction, or a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction disqualifies you under federal law from owning a gun.

33:38So we were asked to shift focus and start working on this project. And it wasn't, you know, what I my preference of what I wanted to be working on, but I was asked to do it and I was willing to do it. And my team was very worried at that time about keeping their jobs because we had Doge in the background and people are getting laid off left and right. And I was responsible for a team of about 45 people who were terrified about losing their jobs. So I looked at it as an opportunity to continue to demonstrate our relevance to the work of the Department of Justice and to be team players, do what was asked of us and carry on.

34:14And we were working on that. But I was then asked to do something that I really just could not in good conscience recommend. And my refusal to do that resulted in me getting fired. I was asked to recommend that the attorney general reinstate the gun ownership rights of a friend of the president, the actor Mel Gibson, who hopefully some of you are too young to remember. He lost his right to own a gun because he was convicted of a very serious domestic assault incident involving his ex-girlfriend and mother of his child. And I was asked essentially on the basis that he's a friend of the president and was seeking this relief and is a famous celebrity who actually was appointed ambassador to Hollywood by Donald Trump to recommend that he get his gun rights back.

35:02And I simply did not have the type of information in front of me that would allow me to make the recommendation that he could safely be entrusted with a firearm. And I communicated to the attorney general staff that I couldn't make that recommendation based on the information that was available to me. I was invited to reconsider my recommendation, reconsider my position. I declined to do that. And literally hours later, I was walked out of the building by security officers. I was pulled out of a meeting with about 25 people from different offices in the Department of Justice, and I was told to pack up my things, and I was out the door the same day.

35:42It was pretty shocking, but once you compromise your integrity, you cannot get it back. So I wouldn't have changed how I handled that situation at all in retrospect. So I did want to say one thing about the pardons that you were talking about, just because this is a very common misconception. A lot of people talk about the distinction between those who were convicted of trespass or misdemeanors in the January 6th context, and then those who were convicted of assaults on police officers. And what a lot of people don't realize is that on day one, those pardons, which were indiscriminate in nature and didn't take into account all of the individualized characteristics that you just described, the people they largely, if not 100 % benefited, were the ones who were serving long sentences for assaulting police officers.

36:29And so I can't say that with 100 % certainty, but the people who benefited were not what you hear on the news of people, quote, walking through the Capitol on a tourist tour, ignoring the fact that that did not happen. But like those were the least culpable people were not the beneficiaries of those pardons. To answer the direct question, I also naively thought like, we're going to, you know, we're going to do our job transition from one administration to the other. I received a call on the night of the inauguration indicating that the executive order would be forthcoming relating to the pardons and commutations and that we would have to implement it.

37:10We had two juries going on at that time, as well as I believe a bench trial. So that had to be like basically stopped in the moment because we also didn't want citizens of the District of Columbia who were serving jury service to have to come in only to be told leave. So it became pretty clear, even with that pardon and commutation order, sort of like how the next few weeks would go. I was supposed to be transitioning with the closeout of the capital C section, which is what our section was called. I was supposed to be transitioning to be a supervisor within our violent crimes and narcotics trafficking section, which is actually sort of my bread and butter of what I did before.

37:50And I was told that that was going to be put on hold. And then two weeks later, the AUSAs who had worked for me were fired. And then on February 28th, I was demoted to a misdemeanor, sort of what we call papering at the U.S. Attorney's Office, so the intake warrants, charging cases, which frankly is actually a pretty important job if you're in the office. But obviously, Mr. Ed Martin did not think it was because that's where he put all of us. We had a really nice email where he said that this change was not temporary. and it was pretty clear to me at that point that there just wasn't, I don't know if there wasn't a place for me, but the job that I loved and the job that kept my blood going through the years didn't exist anymore.

38:38And I can't say, I know it's easy to distill it down to some simple phrase. I can't say actually that the January 6th pardons were the but for reason. There were so many things happening. And it just became clear to me that it was time to explore options. And then, you know, I was sort of searching and doing all of my interviewing. And then, you know, the Perkins Cooey order dropped, the executive order basically vindictively going after law firms for having taken up causes that disagree with the president. And it was sort of a eye opening moment in terms of how the legal field reacted. And I realized I needed to find a place that sort of that I enjoyed, embraced me for me and the like.

39:23Yeah.

39:23Pamela Karlan:I mean, one thing just to say to people is that a number of the executive orders went after the law firms explicitly saying, for example, that a firm had a lawyer at it who had been involved in the special counsel's office or prosecutions or like. And I know that you've gone to a very well-respected boutique firm in DC. Actually, San Francisco. They're based out of San Francisco. Oh, OK. But you were in D.C. for them. Yeah. So folks are looking. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it raises this question. One of the things I saw in watching in the civil rights division where about three quarters of the lawyers, I think it's safe to say, have now left, is the ones who left almost immediately found it much easier to get jobs than the folks who stayed slightly longer and who have had a little more difficulty getting the right kind of job coming in.

40:16Pamela Karlan:out. I mean, do you think that had an effect on people inside of the U.S. attorney's office that they could sort of see that if you kind of had a problem and you left now, it would be easier than if you were the one turning off the lights as you left? To the people who stayed who actually enjoyed doing what they do, the recommendation that I have to people who are constantly struggling with that is if you enjoy what you do, keep doing it. That being said, the people who left early landed on their feet in a very different form and fashion than the people who have been struggling over the last year.

40:52I mean, the legal market has had this influx of lawyers, these incredibly credentialed, experienced, just wonderful people and public servants who are now trying to figure out what to do next. And there's this dearth of opportunity and so many people in the market. Yeah, glut of talent and people trying to figure out like, where do I land? What do I want to do? And I am personally to the people who were part of our team, a lot of people who have left the department on their own terms have landed really well. And I'm like really just incredibly proud of where they've landed and what they're doing.

41:27But there's still a lot of people who are still within the department who I'm sure would say if there were different options out there, but like, what am I going to do? That does create a really hard dilemma for people who are thinking about, should I stay or should I go? And I try to be really empathetic with the people who are choosing to stay, and many of them are doing it for the right reasons. But it's hard when I run sort of crosswise with those people in the fallout from my own firing. And that has been a challenge for me. I'm litigating of appealing my firing, which was clearly illegal under all of the federal service laws.

42:10But there are lawyers at the Department of Justice who I worked very closely with on employment matters when I was the pardon attorney who are now defending my firing in court. And it's very painful, actually. Every time I see their name on a filing that's, you know, arguing that my appeal is frivolous and that I should be denied and get nothing, it really kind of pisses me off. So it's a struggle. I mean, people have families to support. They have a lack of options and people are choosing to stay and many people are choosing to stay and finding opportunities to continue to do good. But, you know, people are towing the line of the administration and it's coming at a cost to people like me in some cases.

42:48Pamela Karlan:Yeah, I mean, I want to just read a little passage from Liz has a great substack. And she's lucky to have the last name Oyer. So it's called Lawyer Oyer. And I just want to read a little passage from it that I read, which is you said, my work as a lawyer has always been more than a job. It's given me meaning, purpose and identity. The sense of loss I still feel six months later is immense. I know I'm not alone in this. Public servants pour their hearts and souls into their work, not for the money, but for the mission. And I'm sure that there are many other feds who've been fired or displaced who can relate.

43:21Pamela Karlan:I mean, Stacey, what's been your experience? I mean, I wasn't pushed out of the department. I left after four days of this administration. Well, I would count that in some sense as being pushed out. I mean, you weren't. Let me let me ask you the counterfactual, which is if Donald Trump had lost, would you have been thinking about leaving the department four days into January? Yeah. I mean, I don't say I was. No, the answer is no. I mean, I don't say I was pushed out because so many people were really pushed out either because they were fired or they were coerced into leaving. I wasn't in that boat.

44:00I would have been fired. I mean, I wrote an op-ed shortly before the inauguration in the New York Times that was very critical of this administration and urged people to support federal and DOJ employees in particular. So I was setting myself up to be fired, but that was, you know, that was voluntary. So I don't want to put myself in that boat. And a lot of people really thought that they survived the first Trump administration. They could do it again. I mean, I'm just like a deep, like Cassandra, like I am a doomsayer. Like I absolutely expect the worst in all situations. And I'm not saying everybody else was naive.

44:38They weren't like, Like, I'm very rarely right about how bleak my general world outlook is. But in this case, I was right. I was like, this is going to be catastrophic at DOJ. There's only one department that investigated and prosecuted this president. He is going to go after them. Like, I need to get out. And I thought that I would be more, you know, could be more valuable on the outside, starting an organization to support people on the inside. That said, we support people on the inside because it's really important that people stay. Like it is really important that people stay. I mean, the rule of law can't survive without the institution that is that enforces it, you know, without DOJ.

45:18I mean, you need good people in DOJ. The backbone of DOJ is its career workforce. It's not the, you know, several hundred political appointees who come in and out. It's the more than 100 ,000 career employees at DOJ. and most of them have stayed. 16 ,000 have been purged. Most of them are still there and they're under attack by this administration. And it's been brutal. And this administration has put them in the trauma that they literally said they would. They said during the transition, we are going to put them in trauma. Like those are demonic thing. They did it. They said it and they've done it.

46:00So, you know, people are staying for many different reasons. It's very complicated. But many, many people are staying because they know that they're saying it's helping to uphold the rule of law. And in many cases, they're leaving when they are being given unethical or illegal or unconstitutional orders. But leaving under those circumstances is actually really important. I mean, you know, those departures have shed light on, you know, the lawlessness at the department. It is really important to have people there who are going to stand up for the right thing, who are going to do the right thing.

46:35They're going to blow the whistle quietly or loudly. The people who are still there are doing incredibly important work, and we try to celebrate them as much as we can. Yeah. And I mean, would you go back to DOJ at some point?

46:51Pamela Karlan:And what would lead you to go back to DOJ? I very much hope to be part of the rebuilding. It is badly needed. As somebody who came into DOJ from the outside, I had notes to begin with about things that could be done better or differently. And I think there are a lot of ways that the institution could be made more resilient and more durable. I hope to be part of that. What would be something that would make for a kind of resilience? I mean, I would have thought until this administration that the civil service protection created the opportunity for a lot of resilience. And it seems like the administration between the schedule F or whatever they want to call it now and the fact that they're just firing people right and left.

47:41Pamela Karlan:You know, I'm thinking about the attorney who went out to Minneapolis and, you know, in the habeas and said, the system sucks. My job sucks. Please hold me. She's running for Congress now, did you? Yeah, I saw that. But before that, you know, I would have thought that the civil service protections and the general respect that I think politicals have had institutionally for career lawyers for most of DOJ's history would allow for a kind of resilience. But what do we do to create that resilience, given what we've now seen happen? Well, I think you just described the problem is that they've had a respect for certain ways of doing things.

48:19And when it just comes down to norms, it really, at the end of the day, is unenforceable. If you've got somebody who's willing to blow through all the norms, brings in a bunch of people who've never worked in the organization before, don't even know what the norms are, let alone respect them, and then just decide to do everything completely differently with total disregard for norms and conventions and things that we've all come to agree are socially acceptable. I think that part of the reason that that was able to happen so quickly and so thoroughly is because DOJ historically has been a pretty insular institution.

48:52And I think that communications are a weakness for the Department of Justice were a weakness historically. I think that much of the public doesn't understand how DOJ is supposed to work. So they don't immediately understand why everything that's happening now is so out of bounds and abnormal. it's hard to, in the same time, kind of put out the fire while also educating the public about why the fire is bad. Because, you know, we just have not historically had a Justice Department that has been good at making communities understand its value, understand the purpose that it serves, understand the important work that the people in the Justice Department are doing.

49:30And we haven't had a Justice Department that is as transparent as I think it could be about how things work inside DOJ. So there are communities out there that view the Justice Department as a place where only bad things happen. It's where, you know, if DOJ gets involved, you know, your son is probably going to prison for the rest of their life or, you know, something bad is going to happen in your community. And that perception could be addressed by a justice department being more present in communities and proactive in communicating with the public by meeting people where they are. I think that would start with having a much bigger press operation inside DOJ.

50:11There were only a couple of dozen people under the Biden administration working on communications in DOJ. They weren't on flooding social media with information like this administration is doing. And I think that, you know, what this administration is doing is sort of the opposite extreme end of the spectrum. But there are some medium in between where DOJ really needs to sell itself to the people it serves in a way that it hasn't historically. That's right. I mean, I think it's one of the few things this administration at DOJ does well. It gets the word out about what it's doing. And DOJ always kind of viewed itself as above the fray.

50:46I mean, it was very through your pleadings. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, when somebody would win a case, you know, the department would issue the most kind of anodyne, boring press release that very few people would pick up. It's like, no, DOJ does amazing things and its work touches on like every facet of every American's life. Like it should have been boasting about the incredible work it was doing on behalf of the American public. And it just always failed to do that. And, you know, to your point about norms, I mean, DOJ also, you know, survived for as many years as it did based not on laws that that governed it.

51:24It survived on norms and traditions. And, you know, the norms were basically codified in what's called the justice manual. But there's no enforcement mechanism. Like if you violate the justice manual, you're not going to go to prison. You're not even going to get fired in most cases. And this administration has run roughshod over the justice manual and all norms that, you know, every single administration until this one, you know, followed in good faith. I mean, if there's no adherence to norms and there's no enforcement mechanism, then of course they can just be something, you know, an institution can just be like torn down like DOJ has been.

52:04So, you know, moving forward, if we're able, if we're lucky enough to get out of this quagmire, you know, we need to kind of reimagine DOJ and not just kind of trust the people in charge. There need, you know, we need to kind of codify what's contained in the justice manual and make sure that, you know, there are real consequences to not obeying ethical requirements and laws in the Constitution. Because right now, you know, it's not much preventing what's going on. Yeah. And in the criminal prosecution area in particular, there were two very big norms that seem to have disappeared.

52:39Pamela Karlan:I wonder how we bring those back. One was the just no contact with the White House about individual prosecutions or even individual lawsuits. I mean, I was, you know, I was the deputy assistant attorney general. I couldn't talk to somebody in the White House without having somebody from the senior leadership staff. There were like 10 people inside the entire Department of Justice who could speak to the White House. And the White House never once in either of the two administrations I worked in came and told us what to do in a case or to bring a case. They certainly never came to us in that. And this administration, of course, the president, like, you know, in probably the most notorious one is the mistaken tweet to Pam Bondi, who is now going off to much needed private jobs is what the needed by whom we can leave out for the moment.

53:31Pamela Karlan:But directing her like, I want to see these people prosecuted. And if you don't prosecute these people, you're going to be fired and firing a bunch of people. And then the other thing is the Ed Martin thing about if we can't indict somebody, then rather than just saying, well, we don't have probable cause or we don't think we can get a conviction, so we're not going to deny. We will shame them. We will name them and shame them instead. I mean, that just seems totally unlike anything we've seen before. How do we deal with that? I mean, so I'll take a sort of like, I'm going to try to talk out of both sides of my mouth, which is one is I think DOJ in some ways is irreparably broken.

54:10I don't know how you, the norms that have been crossed and run roughshod over, I agree with both of them that the way you fix it in part is to institutionalize a lot of those norms through statute. But again, all of that assumes that a future administration isn't going to say hashtag article two, we win, which is basically what happens now. I mean, like the unitary executive theory is, is, is in fact that, and, you know, I worry about a lot of the, I worry about a lot of those changes basically being tossed by the wayside. It's already been tossed, but whether or not they can actually be recodified or reinstitutionalized.

54:49I do think that there is a future of rebuilding. I'm just not sure it's rebuilding. I mean, to use your analogy, I it's, there's not one fire in the house. There's like fires everywhere. And, you know, you've got to put out the fire first. And once you put out the fires, you're not like building bits and pieces of the house, you're probably raised down to its studs, and then you have to completely build a new institution. And I think that's what probably has to happen. And I don't know what I mean, there's a lot of different ideas that people have, you know, to include a constitutional amendment to repeal Trump versus the United States.

55:26Citizens United still has played a tremendous role in how the political environment functions. And I think there are policymakers who are considering that. But to your point, how do we get elected officials or politicians or supervisors who come in who don't just want to be name and shame? That is so anathema to the way I think about our job and the job that existed. When we were doing the January 6th prosecutions, and I believe then President Biden issued his, like he was going to run for re-election. And I think it was like February, January of 2022 or 2023. I don't remember exactly the date, but he did it at Mount Vernon.

56:14And he sort of gave a whole speech. And a lot of the speech was about J6. And I'm obviously proud, and I know the team's proud of the work that we did, But like, I was not particularly in love with the fact that the sitting president United States was talking about my active, you know, criminal prosecution. And that it's because of that independence that we traditionally had, where there wasn't that interference. And to see it sort of play out, as everybody knows now, pretty overtly and politically was like under undermine the strength of the prosecution, undermine what we were trying to do. So, I mean, it's going to take people like students who come in and new lawyers and people with like a sort of refound committed ethics to get that done.

57:00Pamela Karlan:Well, speaking of students, we have time for some questions. Thank you all so much for coming to speak with us. You've talked a little about rebuilding the department. And I guess how would you think about from where we're coming, where students who've kind of been denied the opportunity to start our careers at DOJ or at other places in the federal government? It's like, how should we be positioning ourselves to kind of be a part of that rebuilding? Well, now you can. Now you can go right from law school to.

57:25I mean, I think, I mean, Stacey's point is apt. Good people need to go into the Department of Justice and for the right reasons and for the right interest. And I don't mean that like you need to come in with this like lofty ideal at all times, you know, living your life, you know, but you do need to focus on what your mission is and you need to enjoy that mission. because happy people make productive people and productive people help the communities in this country. And so to answer your question directly, I don't think people should necessarily stray away from the Department of Justice. I think good people should join.

58:01I think people need to understand how sort of political the institution has become and understand where the guardrails are. And for each of you, there's gonna be different, right, there's gonna be different red lines. So it seems to me like there's kind of like a general norm against prosecuting previous administrations, which we sort of saw change during the Biden administration. I think it would be fair to say that that's somewhat untenable now with kind of the scale of crimes that we're seeing the Trump administration commit. So I guess what could criminal accountability for the Trump administration look like?

58:39And what would the role of the DOJ be in just accountability generally for the last few years? I suspect that President Trump and many in his administration are going to be pardoned. So I think criminal accountability in terms of, you know, federal laws will be difficult, but there are possibilities at the state level. And there are many different types of accountability. So, you know, there are going to be a gazillion think pieces written about this over the next few years, most of which I think will be written by Liz and Greg. So I look forward to reading all of that. My question is kind of similar to what you were talking about in terms of red lines.

59:19For us, as we think about entering into our careers, whether it's firms or government, what is your advice on formulating those red lines or knowing them when we see them as they come up? How did you guys think about those things? I guess what I would say is I think it depends. I think there's some fluidity to the situation. I mean, everybody has red lines until they don't have red lines, right? And that's not necessarily to say that because you no longer have a red line, you've compromised your integrity. But, you know, situations change. So I think you have to be comfortable with sort of a changing ground.

59:52You know, for me, I, you know, I thought something was going to happen on J6. And there was a part of me that was like, yeah, if they pardon people, I'm going to leave. That's my red line. And it wasn't. And there were a lot of complex reasons for why that was internally. But I also think that I would hope that I walked away with my integrity intact. And that was the most important thing for me and to make sure that my family and my kids understood what I was doing and why I was doing it. I will say that DOJ lawyers are just kind of an inherently ethical, rule-following, nerdy bunch. And it just kind of comes naturally.

1:00:31Like we never used to have to think about red lines, but just, I can tell you anecdotally, like a lot of people at lawyers at DOJ have really been studying state bar rules and government ethics rules in a way they never really had because it just, they just understood them before and they were never really tested. So, you know, the, the lines they're facing have been tested in it just an unprecedented way. And people really do think about that line drawing more than they ever had to in the past. How would you recommend current or upcoming DOJ employees handle Congress's law on the Epstein files?

1:01:12Look, the whole Epstein saga is such an interesting thing because in many ways it is out of the norms of DOJ to even talk about cases that are either concluded or are ancillary to the initial target, right? Because Epstein passed away, that case is largely done. And now there's this tremendous interest in releasing these files, which as many of us have seen, if you go online, include some very sensitive information about victims of pretty heinous offenses. And so there's this struggle between transparency and the traditional norms of secrecy for the department, which made sense at one time. And I guess to answer your question, I mean, obviously, you have to comply with the law.

1:02:01So Congress passed the statute, you know, there needs to be accountability in that regard. And frankly, one of the astounding things that I think I've seen and didn't quite appreciate was, you know, this thing had been ticking for so long. And when Congress finally pulled the trigger and passed the legislation and it was signed by the president, the department, there's usually a process, right? Process is why we go to law school, right? Process is it. Due process is why we are lawyers. And the lack of process that existed in the Epstein file disclosures was frankly astounding to me. I mean, that the department wasn't prepared and is relying on pulling AUSAs and trial attorneys from Maine Justice and from SDNY and BC and everybody to review files where no one's giving what seems to be any direction as to, well, what is getting redacted?

1:02:58What is covered? What's the review process look like? And I mean, it doesn't seem like anybody's really learned their lesson. And it creates collateral consequences. You see lawsuits that are springing out because of that. So, you know, I guess the hope would be that trial attorneys and AUSAs in the department who are no longer working on that because they're devoted to the day-to-day mission of the department, but if they do get sucked into that, you know, not only do you have to follow Congress's mandate, you have to make sure the department has rules internally that they're complying with. Otherwise, it's just made up.

1:03:34Pamela Karlan:This is Stanford Legal. If you're enjoying the show, Please tell a friend and leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. Your feedback improves our show and helps new listeners to discover us. I'm Pam Carlin. See you next time.