Trump's Power & the Rule of Law: John Yoo (interview) | FRONTLINE

John Yoo is a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. Yoo served as the deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration. He also served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals court Judge Laurence Silberman. He is co-author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court."

The following interview was conducted by Mike Wiser for FRONTLINE on March 27, 2025. It has been annotated and edited for accuracy and clarity as part of an editorial and legal review. See a more complete description of our process here

This interview is being published as part of FRONTLINE’s Transparency Project, an effort to open up the source material behind our documentaries. Explore the annotated transcript of this interview, and others, on the FRONTLINE website

To access the annotated transcript here on YouTube, scroll below and click “Show Transcript.”

Explore a collection of more interviews from “Trump’s Power & The Rule of Law” here on YouTube via this playlist