Dan, how unusual is this kind of mass pardon?

pardon?Well, of course, uh, uh, uh, President Washington granted amnesty to participants in the Whiskey Rebellion against, uh, federal whiskey taxes, and, uh, President Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson pardoned and granted amnesty for Confederate soldiers and officials.

But I think it's very important to note that, uh, in most cases of mass pardons by previous presidents, the, uh, the pardonees were required to take affirmative measures, uh, in order to, uh, to get that kind of forgiveness.

So for instance, the, uh, the, the Confederate soldiers who were pardoned were required to swear an oath to the Union.

Uh, when, when Gerald Ford granted, granted amnesty to, uh, people who unlawfully failed to register for the, for the Vietnam draft, uh, Ford required people to, uh, come back and do public service.

Uh, Carter, I believe, did not do that.

But we have seen a broader trend of, uh, of, uh, presidents granting mass pardons without really requiring anything in exchange.

I don't even know who he is," is this type of response from the president, um, become standard? Tell us a little bit about the CZ case and what it says to you more broadly about the use of the pardon power here.

But maybe, Dan, could you also first do a little bit more stage setting on the case itself that led to the creation of this fund? Tell us about the case and some of the issues that it raised and then the settlement.

Well, Molly, this is particularly challenging, I think, to summarize.

And I feel a little bit like Woody Allen.

He famously said that he took a course in speed reading.

He learned to read straight down the middle of the page, and he was able to go through War and Peace in about 20 minutes.

And he discovered after speed reading through War and Peace that it was about Russia.

And in much the same way, I feel as if there are so many aspects of corruption and illegality and threats to constitutional government that are contained in this anti-weaponization fund agreement that it is difficult to summarize them.

Well,

But maybe, Dan, could you also first do a little bit more stage-setting on the case itself that led to the creation of this fund? Um, tell us about the case and some of the issues that it raised, um, and then the settlement.

Well, Molly, this is a, this is particularly challenging, I think, to, to summarize, and I, I feel a little bit like, uh, Woody Allen.

You know, he, uh, he famously said that, uh, he, he took a course in speed reading.

Uh, he, you know, he learned to read, you know, straight down the middle of the page, and he was able to go through War and Peace in about twenty minutes.

And, uh, and he discovered after speed reading through War and Peace that it was about Russia.

And, and in much, in much the same way, I feel as if there are so many aspects of corruption and illegality and, and threats to constitutional government that are contained in this, uh, in this Anti-Weaponization Fund agreement that it is difficult to summarize them.

Uh, but, uh, that is, that is what we will try to do today.

This is absolutely part of a pattern to build up the, uh, executive branch and Donald Trump's power at the expense of the other two branches, and I'm sure you two could comment on this, but that's already a problematic situation to begin with.

Dan, what do you make of that reading?

Well, so, you know, interpretation is a, is a tricky business, and it makes me think about the nature of interpretation generally.

And so when we, when we look at, you know, this whole controversy, I mean, I, you know, what, what stands out in my mind is the, the long history of the, the way that birthright citizenship, uh, is, is read into the Constitution in a fairly uncontroversial way.

And that's, that's not just, you know, that's not just Wong Kim.

You know, that's, uh, uh, Congress deciding that, uh, uh, uh, uh, birthright citizenship is, is, uh, you know, the theory of birthright citizenship is, is more or less true, and they, they write that into legislation in the, uh, in the 20th century twice, I believe in 1940 and 1952 in the Immigration Acts.

Um, one thing that's interesting to me about this case is it forces us to think about, you know, how best to interpret things.

And so, and so we move away from, uh, in- indeed, um, the, the plea of, uh, of the Trump administration is to, is to go back and, and almost avoid, I think, uh, what happened in the 20th century and this, and this set of, uh, uh, uh, expectations or reliance interests that was laid down and go back to the original language.

Do you wanna talk about how, w- his arguments, how we respond to that, and just in general, what we've, what we've seen from the originalist, uh, legal community in the last year and a half?