On Thursday, the White House announced that President Joe Biden Sentence commuting for about 1,500 people Those who were released from prison during the pandemic and have since been placed under house arrest – a record number of changes in one day. Biden pardoned another 39 people convicted of nonviolent crimes and said he would continue to review clemency applications, which could come in the form of a commutation or pardon.
This move illustrates how important the power to pardon really is: the last possible remedy when the criminal justice system incarcerates too many people and sentences them too harshly.
But it comes just after Biden showed another side of the presidential pardon. Shortly after Thanksgiving, Biden issued one Huge apologies to his son HunterArguing that Hunter was unfairly prosecuted and that the tax evasion and gun charges brought against him were politically motivated. The decision was a stark departure from his campaign promise to restore a commitment to the rule of law and restore rules that insulate the judiciary from presidential conflicts of interest, after Donald Trump blatantly abandoned those principles during his first White House term.
Biden’s pardon of his son was criticized by lawmakers, including member of his party, And also seems unpopular with the American public. (According to an Associated Press poll, Only two in 10 are American approval of Biden’s decision to pardon his son.) In light of Hunter’s pardon, as well as Trump’s previous corrupt use of power and his promise to pardon participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, lawmakers duly renewed Calls for a check on the president’s pardon power.
Thursday’s apology, however, underscores why energy conservation is an important tool and why efforts to reform it should be cautious. But there is still a way to ensure that it is used for greater good than personal gain.
That said, any attempt at pardon reform will face an uphill battle because power Included in the US Constitution — but given the bipartisan tendency to abuse it and frustration with it by people on both sides of the aisle, lawmakers may now have a unique opportunity to make some key changes.
How Presidents Have Used (and Abused) Their Pardon Power
A pardon is one of the broadest and most unrestricted powers of the President. As my colleague Ian Milheiser recently pointed out, the Supreme Court has, for more than 150 years, recognized that presidents can issue pardons as they please — to whomever and as many people as they want — and neither Congress nor the courts can get in the way. .
The scope of the pardon power is also extremely narrow: Presidents can only pardon federal crimes, so presidential pardons do not protect their recipients from prosecution under state law. And presidents cannot issue pardons for crimes committed in the future.
“The pardon power is certainly the broadest and least restrictive for an American president,” said Donald Sherman, executive director and chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit government ethics watchdog. “Especially dangerous in the hands of a lawless president.”
Throughout American history, all but Two presidents have used their pardon powerUsually Issuing them when leaving the White House To avoid political backlash while in office. And many presidential pardons have been, to put it mildly, controversial.
Trump, for example, has issued pardons to his close allies, including Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon. He also Forgave her son-in-law’s fatherand even Apparently hanging in public The pardon came before Paul Manafort, his former campaign chair, while Manafort was under investigation for Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Bill Clinton Mark forgives RichA fugitive tax evader whose Ex-wife generously donated To Clinton and the Democrats, and Clinton also pardoned her half-brother.
But perhaps most (a) famous, Gerald Ford Granted Richard Nixon’s pardon Nixon’s resignation after the Watergate scandal – set the precedent that presidents are indeed above the law.
But the president’s power to grant pardons is also a powerful tool that can be used for good, especially to right historical wrongs committed by federal courts, as evident in Biden’s decision today. Barack Obama has pardoned nearly 2,000 people, mostly non-violent drug offenders. It can also be a democratic tool, as highlighted in Jimmy Carter’s first full day in the White House, when he Thousands of apologies Americans who avoided the Vietnam War draft, Promotional commitment.
By empowering the president, as the elected representative of the people, to grant pardons, a pardon is essentially the only way to undo the public’s belief that we as a society decided that was wrong.
So while the power of pardon has certainly been abused, it also serves an important purpose and should not be dismissed entirely. That’s why efforts to rein it in should focus on narrowly limiting presidential power by providing only more transparency and oversight and the possibility of undoing a corrupt pardon.
How should forgiveness reform?
An easy path to pardon reform is to create new rules at the executive level. And while they can easily be undone — and are certainly less likely to happen in the Trump years — they can set standards and public expectations about how presidents issue pardons.
A future president, for example, Can constitute a pardon boardSimilar to how many states grant amnesty. The board will be staffed by experts, who will review petitions and provide a more transparent and deliberative process than the current system. At this point, it happens in the pardon attorney’s office with the Department of Justice, which has happened Criticized for its opaque process How does it recommend presidential pardons?
More complex reforms would require a constitutional amendment to include new restrictions.
“One thing that might be worth exploring is a congressional override,” Sherman said. Thus, Congress does not necessarily have to curtail the power of the President or place limits on who the President can and cannot pardon. But in deeply unpopular cases that present a conflict of interest, Congress can have a say in whether those pardons should stand. “If there was a supermajority override provision, [that] can solve some of the most serious cases,” Sherman added.
Other proposals may include clear (though narrow) limitations on presidential powers. Democratic Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee, for example, Previously enacted laws Amending the Constitution to prevent presidents from being able to pardon themselves, their family members, and administration and campaign officials. “The framers of the Constitution included pardon provisions as a safety valve against wrongdoing, not as a way for a president to place himself, his family and his associates above the law,” Cohen said. At this time in a statement Dr.
Until these reforms are made, presidents will continue to exercise one of their most sweeping powers without checks and balances. Biden may have shown how to use that power on his way out (Hunter pardon aside), but Trump is preparing to return to the White House more unchecked than ever, leaving the pardon power untouched, which should worry lawmakers across the board.
