“Pardoning the Bad, is injuring the Good.” ~ Benjamin Franklin
When I was around 10 or 11, I was trying to make something and asked my mother for help. We got into a tussle about something and she completely snapped at me. That may not seem like much, but it was so out of character for my mother. It actually kind of scared me, so I went quiet and complacent and almost started to cry.
My mother left the room, composed herself and returned about a half hour later. She apologized to me… said she as sorry for losing her temper. I remember the event because, well, my mom rarely apologized for her mother behavior. (She had a lot of certainty, that she was usually right.)
And, of course, I pardoned her and forgave her.
That’s actually how pardons are supposed to work. The sequence goes something like this: Bad Behavior → Contrition and apology → Pardon
Of course, with #FOTUS, pardons are a transaction that works like this…
Bad Behavior → Fawn all over me, do me a favor or pay me an extortion fee → Pardon
In other words - no contrition. You can buy your way out of any bad behavior with this president.
Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
The Presidential Pardon is probably one of the most powerful clauses in the Constitution. It gives the President the unusual power to override the will of the judicial system: courts, judges and juries.
You can read more at The History of the Pardon Power.
George Washington first exercised the pardon power in 1795 after he issued amnesty to those engaged in Pennsylvania’s Whiskey Rebellion. Thomas Jefferson granted amnesty to any citizen convicted of a crime under the Alien and Sedition Acts. Abraham Lincoln used clemency to encourage desertions from the Confederate Army.
There’s no doubt, that we’ve had questionable presidential pardons in the past.
In 1865, President Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate soldiers after the Civil War. One of the most controversial presidential pardons in U.S. history was his pardon of Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy, in 1868.
Warren G. Harding’s commutation of twenty-four political prisoners, including socialist leader Eugene Debs, proved controversial.
Richard Nixon freed Lt. William Calley, the only person convicted in the My Lai massacre. In 1971, Richard Nixon commuted the sentence of Jimmy Hoffa, who was convicted for pension fund fraud and jury tampering. It’s worth noting the Teamsters endorsed Nixon for President in 1960 and 1972.
Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon was highly controversial as it shielded Nixon from potential criminal charges. Some viewed it as a necessary step to heal the nation, while others saw it as a betrayal of justice.
Bill Clinton's pardon of the financier Marc Rich, who was facing charges of tax evasion and racketeering, was widely criticized. Rich's ex-wife had donated heavily to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Library, and his pardon was seen as a quid pro quo. Clinton also pardoned his brother, Roger, for a drug conviction and Patty Hearst for her role in the bank robberies with the Symbionese Liberation Army. One of his most controversial decisions was to commute the sentences of 16 members of the Puerto Rican terrorist organization FALN. The group was responsible for bombings that killed six people, and the commutations faced strong opposition from both political parties.
Jimmy Carter's pardon of those who evaded the Vietnam War draft was controversial, as it was seen as a symbolic act of reconciliation but also as a potential affront to those who had served in the military. His pardon of "Scooter" Libby, who had been convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the leak of a CIA operative's identity was also controversial.
Ronald Reagan pardoned the New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for illegal campaign contributions related to the Watergate scandal.
Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst who leaked classified information to WikiLeaks.
More recently, Joe Biden’s pardons of his family members were highly controversial. He also issued a series of preemptive pardons for several individuals, including Gen. Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and members and staff of the House committee that investigated the January 6th Capitol attack. These pardons were intended to protect the recipients from potential future prosecution by the Trump administration. However, some critics argued that these preemptive pardons implied guilt (like the Nixon pardon).
But no one has used and abused the presidential pardoning power quite like our Felon-in-Chief has. It’s mind boggling to see the numbers of people he has pardoned. And from what I have read, there has been no contrition and no apology from those whom he pardoned. They’ve walked with the knowledge that they can commit any crime as long as they kiss the ring and profess their undying fealty to the DonFather. (I’ve written about this in the past (Goodfellas; Goodfellas, Part 2; Being Presidential)
Just look his pardon behavior during his first term.
Since 1921, only two Presidents granted clemency on fewer occasions than Trump. In Trump's first term, he granted clemency 237 times, compared with about 78 by George H.W. Bush and about 200 by George W. Bush. Of the pardons and commutations that Trump did grant, the vast majority were to persons to whom Trump had a personal or political connection, or persons for whom executive clemency served a political goal. A significant number had been convicted of fraud or public corruption. The New York Times reported that during the closing days of the Trump presidency, individuals with access to the administration, such as former administration officials, were soliciting fees to lobby for presidential pardons. Compared to other presidents, Trump granted clemency at low rates, with the bulk coming later in his term. Of Trump's grants of clemency, 84% were made in his last fiscal year in office, with 144 (60%) of his 237 grants of clemency being granted on his last night in office; the list was "assembled so hastily that it contained inaccurate information about some cases."
For 125 years, the key adviser to the president on clemency was the Department of Justice's Office of the Pardon Attorney (OPA) which would review all requests for pardons. Trump often bypassed the OPA, and made the majority of his grants to executive clemency to "well-connected offenders who had not filed petitions with the pardon office or did not meet its requirements." Of the 237 grants of clemency by Trump, only 25 came through the OPA's process (which at the end of Trump's presidency had a backlog of 14,000 applications); the other clemency recipients came to Trump's attention through an ad hoc process at the Trump White House that benefited clemency applicants with money or connections to Trump allies, friends, and family members. Most of Trump's pardons and commutations were granted to people with personal or political connections to him. He frequently bypassed the OPA, and the majority of his executive clemency grants were made to well-connected convicts who had not even filed petition with the OPA.
A late December 2020 analysis determined that "seven of the 94 Trump grants came on recommendation from the pardon attorney" and "at least 84 out of 94 Trump pardons had a personal or political connection to the president." (Source: Wikipedia)
Reelected, he has now been on a pardoning spree since his first day in office in 2025. His first pardon of the year was for Ross William Ulbricht - who had a lifetime sentence for aiding and abetting distribution of drugs over the internet; continuing criminal enterprise; computer hacking conspiracy; fraud with identification documents; money laundering conspiracy.
Sounds an upright citizen to let loose on our streets!
He has pardoned or granted clemency to among others:
Political allies: Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, and George Papadopoulos.
Military criminals: Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, Special Warfare Operator Chief Edward Gallagher, Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna,
White-collar criminals: Michael Milken, Devon Archer, Jason Galanis, Trevor Milton, Carlos Watson, Paul Walczak, Bernard Kerik; and daughter Ivanka's father-in-law Charles Kushner. (Bad enough that he pardoned Kushner, then he actually appointed him as the Ambassador to France!!)
Corrupt politicians and government officials: Rod Blagojevich, Michael Grimm, Scott Jenkins, Michelle Fiore, Brian Kelsey, Jeremy Hutchinson
Media celebrities: Todd and Julie Chrisley, NBA YoungBoy, Jay Johnston, Kodak Black, Lil Wayne
But even worse, he has let dangerous, felonious criminals and domestic terrorists loose on our streets with his pardoning of the roughly 1,270 January 6th rioters. Of this number over 1,000 pled guilty and acknowledged that they were criminals.
Some of the more dangerous felons included:
Joseph Biggs: Proud Boys member, Biggs was convicted of seditious conspiracy (recommended 33-year sentence).
Zachary Rehl: Proud Boys member, Rehl was also convicted of seditious conspiracy (recommended 30-year sentence).
Ethan Nordean: Proud Boys member, Nordean was convicted of seditious conspiracy (recommended 27-year sentence).
Stewart Rhodes: Founder of the Oath Keepers, Rhodes, was convicted of seditious conspiracy and (recommended 25-year sentence).
Robert Bauer Alberts: A former Virginia National Guard member, Alberts wore body armor and was armed with a pistol and ammunition. He was the first rioter to breach the northwest steps of the Capitol and used a pallet as a battering ram against police.
Outside of clemency, the Trump administration has moved to drop charges against Republican former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, who had been convicted of lying to the FBI and the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams.
So much for the rule of law…
I don’t know what you think, but I think it’s time to amend the provisions of the Presidential pardoning power…
…Or just maybe, just maybe, we should have a constitutional amendment that says a felon is ineligible to be the President of the United States.
Thought for the day in honor of his birthday…
“Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.”
~ Thurgood Marshall
Must Read Articles:
President Trump issued a mass blanket pardon to 1,500 January 6 felons and dozens of mostly white-collar criminals, he wiped out $1.3 billion in restitution payments and fines they owed directly to their victims and to American taxpayers. While prior presidents overwhelmingly reserved pardons for those who accepted responsibility for their crimes, made full restitution to their victims and paid all their legal fines, Trump uses pardons not only to shorten the sentences of his political friends but to wipe out the debt they owe to their victims and to our society.
Quote of the day:
“The Trump presidency is overseeing a massive transfer of wealth not only from the poor to the rich but from the innocent to the guilty. This is a golden age for politically connected criminal felons. The President has shown total contempt not just for police officers but for the victims and survivors of crime, cheating them and all of society out of the money rightfully owed to them by violent marauders and white-collar fraudsters...Trump’s criminal pardon spree is, in addition to everything else, an astonishing giveaway to lawbreakers to keep the money they stole from their employees, their investors, and all the American taxpayers. Whoever said crime doesn’t pay has certainly not studied the Trump Administration.”
~ Jamie Raskin
What I’m reading today…
The Godfather Presidency: How Donald Trump’s Governing Style Mimics the Mob
In my 35 years of writing about and reporting on US politics and ideology, I can’t think of another time when so many professional observers seem so utterly at a loss to analyze, or even categorize, the president’s MO. And most of them have gotten it wrong. Trump’s operating model is not, as some maintain, the foreign autocrat—even if he curries favor and sings the praises of Putin and Orban and Erdogan, and cozies up to Middle Eastern potentates. Neither is Trump’s model his crafty lawyer-mentor Roy Cohn—even if he practices Cohn’s mantra: Deny, deflect, delay. It’s a mistake, too, to think of Trump as a latter-day P.T. Barnum, a showman-salesman mugging for the TV cameras and effusing on Truth Social.
All that may apply to Trump the entertainer. But Trump the president is shaped by someone he observed at much closer range from childhood on: his father, Fred Trump, the great mid-20th-century apartment builder and developer of outer-borough New York. For many years father and son were partners who mastered the byways and back alleys of real estate at a time when, as two of the period’s best reporters wrote, New York was a “city for sale.” It was a brutish world of transactional power, of patronage, favors, cronyism, bribes, payoffs, pork, and spoils—as well as extortion, intimidation, and threat. It was a world ruled by Mob capos and political allies who at times were little more than frontmen.
Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioter Who Threatened Police Joins Justice Dept.
A former F.B.I. agent who was charged with encouraging the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to kill police officers has been named as an adviser to the Justice Department task force that President Trump established to seek retribution against his political enemies.
The former agent, Jared L. Wise, is serving as a counselor to Ed Martin, the director of the so-called Weaponization Working Group, according to people familiar with the group’s activities.
Mr. Martin, a longtime supporter of Jan. 6 defendants, was put in charge of the weaponization group in May after Mr. Trump withdrew his name for a Senate-confirmed position as the U.S. attorney in Washington.
The Trump Pardons Are Out of Control
But President Trump has transformed the pardon practice into a menacing new frontier of presidential power. I call it “patronage pardoning”: reducing the expected penalty for loyalist misconduct by conspicuously pardoning political allies. This blunt instrument of venality and regime control is a standing public commitment to protect and reward loyalism, however criminal.
When Corruption Isn’t Disqualifying: Trump, Pardons, Cuomo & the Collapse of Accountability
Let’s call it what it is: selling pardons, profiting from public office, hush money payments — these aren’t just allegations anymore. They’re operational strategies. And somehow, voters aren’t just tolerating this behavior — many are rationalizing it.
Imagine if Obama had tried any of this. Or Bush. Or Clinton. We’d have seen bipartisan outrage, likely successful impeachment votes. Today? We get shrugs, deflection, and the laziest kind of whataboutism. “The Bidens did it, so why shouldn’t the Trumps?” One of my favorite recent absurdities came from Speaker Mike Johnson, who suggested the difference was that Trump’s corruption is open, while the Bidens were “sneaky.” Translation: Trump is honest about being dishonest — and somehow that’s a virtue?
Trump pardons drug kingpins even as he escalates U.S. drug war rhetoric
President Trump has long called for escalating the U.S. drug war against Mexican cartels and wants tougher penalties for dealers selling fentanyl and other street drugs in American communities. "I am ready for it, the death penalty, if you deal drugs," Trump said during a meeting with state governors in February, where he said dealers are too often treated with a "slap on the wrist."
But despite his tough rhetoric, Trump has sparked controversy by pardoning a growing number of convicted drug dealers, including this week's move to grant clemency to Larry Hoover, 74, who was serving multiple life sentences in federal prison for crimes linked to his role leading the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples.
Pardon applications are being carefully crafted with one man in mind: Donald Trump
Scott’s application is hardly unique, according to prisoners, defense attorneys and officials. The White House and the Justice Department have received a wave of such requests — all carefully crafted to capture the attention and fancy of Trump or those who know his inclinations.
Trump’s Flurry of Pardons Signals a Wholesale Effort to Redefine Crime
“No MAGA left behind,” crowed Ed Martin, the pardon attorney at the Justice Department who suggested that the department should investigate Mr. Trump’s adversaries to shame them if there was insufficient evidence to charge them.
Mr. Trump has used his pardon power, like nearly every other executive tool in his kit, to assert personal dominance over processes generally, if not always, governed by established ethical and institutional guardrails. He professes to abide by the rule of law, but has often shown a willingness to do so only when he defines the rules and the laws.
After the Chrisleys went to prison, their daughter Savannah began campaigning for their release. Her efforts to win over prominent conservatives – including her outspoken support for Trump – led to a prime-time appearance at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
“My family has been persecuted by rogue prosecutors due to our public profile and conservative beliefs,” she told the delegates and a television audience of 15 million viewers.
Turning an insult into an accolade, she claimed prosecutors had called them the “Trumps of the South.”
Her framing of her parents’ imprisonment aligns with Trump’s broader campaign narrative of victimization, redemption and retribution, which critics say he has continued to promote and carry out during his second term.
“I’ll have what she’s having” (a presidential pardon)
As its leaders now face potential twenty-year prison sentences, OneTaste may have a second life as a MAGA cause célèbre. That’s because Daedone and her legal team have been pitching themselves as victims of exactly the kind of prosecutorial “weaponization” that the Trump administration has vowed to eradicate.
What I am listening to…
What I am watching…
“They constantly gaslight you…. I got the biggest smear campaign that you can imagine…”
What I read every day…
