the u.s. federal constitution and most state constitutions vest the pardon power in the chief executive, the president of the united states, and in most states in the governor. if you're a prosecutor, as i once was, you are working as part of the executive branch. whose job is it then to hand out pardons? isn't it sort of an arrogant position by prosecutors to say, i'm going to try to frustrate the will of the chief executive who heads the very branch in which i work? i start off with that institutional argument. >> this is reminiscent for me where i'm sitting here listening to you and reflecting on a commentary i delivered on cnn a week ago where i was similarly analyzing whether it's proper for prosecutors to game out the timing of a trial according to the election calendar. i took the view that that's improper. do you see parallels between the two? >> i do, because in the prosecutorial ideal, you're not thinking about politics at all. we strive to be separate from politics.