Former President Barack Obama told Late Show host Stephen Colbert in an interview that the president cannot direct the Attorney General or the Justice Department to prosecute people, in remarks that appeared to be directed at President Donald Trump without naming him.
Former President Barack Obama speaks with students during a visit to Learning Through Play Pre-K with Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
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In the interview, which aired late on Tuesday night, Colbert asked Obama about what powers he believes the president should not have.
The former president said there must be a push to codify the “basic norm” that the White House shouldn’t be able to direct the Attorney General to “go around prosecuting whoever the president wants prosecuted.”
Obama said the Attorney General is considered the “people’s lawyer” and not the president’s “consigliere.”
The Democrat said he believes the country can survive a lot of things, including “bad policy, funky elections,” but it can’t overcome the “politicization of the criminal justice system.”
Without naming Trump or his administration at any point, Obama said you can’t have a situation where “whoever is in charge” uses the justice department’s powers to go after “their political enemies.”
Aside from going after one’s political enemies, Obama said he believes presidents should also not be “rewarding…friends.” Taking a dig at his successor’s use of the presidential clemency powers, the former president said: “Maybe don’t pardon people who have given you a bunch of campaign contributions or invested in your businesses.” However, Obama acknowledged that this will be “harder to change.”
In another comment that was pointed at Trump, without naming him, Obama said: “A good policy that I’d like to see followed is that the president of the United States shouldn’t have a bunch of side hustles” in which “companies and foreign entities get enmeshed in.”
Obama also said that a president shouldn’t politicize the military. “As President, you are Commander in Chief, you’re responsible for directing our military.” He noted that norms were put in place to ensure that “you weren’t trying to make that military loyal to you as opposed to the constitution and the people of the United States. We’re going to have to find mechanisms to restore that.”
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