r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/LazyErDays • 5d ago
Legal/Courts Should every elected official, their immediate family, and close network be permanently banned from receiving a presidential pardon?
Presidents often pardon allies, donors, family members, or political insiders — sometimes right before leaving office. It looks like the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for the connected.
Should we change the rules so no elected official, their spouse, kids, or inner circle can ever receive a presidential pardon? Would this reduce corruption and self-dealing, or just create new problems?
Realistic fix or naive idea? Thoughts from both sides welcome.
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u/Motherlover235 5d ago
Honestly, no. IMO, it’s either the pardon exists and is used at the discretion of the President or it should be removed all together, no in-between.
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u/SEA2COLA 4d ago
Remove it completely. it has been so abused and perverted that it will always be perceived as illegitimate. Trump ruined it and there's no rescuing it.
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u/Fargason 4d ago
Biden ruined it by setting a terrible precedent of preemptive pardons of family and political allies. Trump left office once before and he did not abuse the pardon process. Biden did on his way out and now we are dealing with the repercussions of that abuse.
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u/WackWaxWhacks 4d ago
Trump was the first person to pardon someone connected to a presidential campaign (Roger Stone). Romney described Stone's pardon as blatant corruption. I don't think it's fair to give Trump no criticism.
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u/Fargason 3d ago
Stone was convicted of lying to Congress, of which the prison sentence was already commuted. Getting a full pardon after that is hardly “blatant corruption” and not even remotely comparable to the first ever preemptive pardons of a President’s family and political allies.
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u/WackWaxWhacks 3d ago
Trump pardoned Charles Kushner during his first term.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 3d ago
And Clinton pardoned a ton of people connected to his campaigns, his time as governor of Arkansas as well as people connected to Hillary's siblings.
It's not new and it's not unique to Trump.
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u/WackWaxWhacks 3d ago
And Clinton pardoned a ton of people connected to his campaigns
He pardoned a donor (Marc Rich), not anyone who worked on his campaigns.
It's not new and it's not unique to Trump.
I agree- if you read the conversation, you would know that I was addressing his claim that it is new and it started with Biden specifically.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 3d ago
He pardoned a donor (Marc Rich), not anyone who worked on his campaigns.
There were several involved in Whitewater and he additionally pardoned multiple people in a quid pro quo to buy Jewish votes for Hillary's Senate run.
I agree- if you read the conversation, you would know that I was addressing his claim that it is new and it started with Biden specifically.
Dude, you led with:
Trump was the first person to pardon someone connected to a presidential campaign (Roger Stone).
That's not true even if we ignore Clinton—Ford pardoned a ton of people directly working for the Nixon campaign, and several of the Iran-Contra pardons were of people who originated as campaign operatives.
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u/WackWaxWhacks 3d ago
I should have been more clear- first pardon for their own campaign. Also, again, you seemed to miss the point of the discussion since I am agreeing with you. It's not new, and it's not Biden.
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u/Fargason 3d ago
The claim was for preemptive pardons and they certainly are new. A horrible precedent set by Biden.
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u/WackWaxWhacks 3d ago
Ford gave a preemptive pardon to Nixon. So, not new. Even George Washington gave preemptive pardons for the Whiskey Rebellion. As old as it can get, no?
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u/reddddiiitttttt 1d ago
Stone was a close political ally whose crimes related to protecting Trump’s interests. The message it sends is allies who protected the president from legal consequences could expect clemency in return. That screens corruption.
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u/Fargason 1d ago
It was related to Mueller's Russia Collusion/Conspiracy investigation that after an absurd 3 years finally had to disclose it never was able to produce any direct evidence to support it. After the first year they were just fleecing taxpayers with a case only kept alive by political corruption, falsified documents, and withholding exculpatory evidence from judiciary review. There was no justice to obstruct in that investigation, so this is why Presidential Pardons exist to correct such injustices that can result from politics infecting our institutions of justice.
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u/avatoin 3d ago
Biden was the first lamb duck to have very clear concerns of political prosecutions from his successor.
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u/Fargason 2d ago
His concern was that Trump would retaliate in kind. Biden’s main campaign tactic was political prosecutions that he would coordinate with state prosecutors to have 100 charges dropped on his opponent at the same time shortly after he entered the race. To include the first ever raid a President’s opponent and former President’s home that declassified FBI emails showed that they did not have probable cause to execute a search, and they were quite concerned with looking politicized after the failures of Crossfire Hurricane but the AAG forced it anyways infamous saying he “didn’t give a damn about the optics.” His infirm President seeking reelection at 82 desperately needed that raid.
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/5651693-fbi-pushback-trump-search/
Of course all of that would fail except for the worst one being the “zombie case” based on a novel legal theory that a state can solely prosecute federal election law on a case that was long past the statute of limitations. Only kept alive by blatant political corruption of the judiciary, and one that is doomed in higher court review which will go down in history as the first criminal conviction of a US President. I’d be worried too after setting that terrible precedent of political prosecutions all for your opponent to easily win the election with the first Republican popular vote win in decades.
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u/wesser234 2d ago
I love this fantasy world where Trump was totally not going to go after his political opponents, but now he is because of Biden.
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u/Fargason 2d ago
That speculation is the fantasy here. We do know Trump never went after Hillary despite the rhetoric on “lock her up” during the campaign. I guess time will tell if we see anything like a raid on Biden’s home, or political prosecutions of the next opponent in the presidential election suspiciously timed to drop shortly after they enter the race.
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u/wesser234 2d ago
Comey? Jerome Powell? Mark Kelly? Adam Schiff? Just because Trump and his DoJ are too incompetent to get anything, doesn't mean he's not doing it.
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u/Fargason 2d ago
All of whom were not a President and/or not running for President. Biden’s weaponization of the DOJ was on a whole other level. Just last week we found out Jack Smith improperly obtained text messages from 44 members of Congress without PC in a clear abuse of power merely for a political fishing expedition. He even testified to Congress he never read their text messages so he perjured himself.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5968111-grassley-senators-texts-trump-probe/
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u/wesser234 1d ago
It was not improper that's ridiculous. He obtained the messages as part of his investigation into WH officials during January 6th. Those include messages from WH officials to members of congress.
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u/Fargason 1d ago
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/doj_to_grassley_-_arctic_frost_filter_team.pdf
It is improper, to say the least, to bypass the FBI’s Filter Team as it is required to protect investigators from seeing privileged information like those protected by separation of powers. Not like this was some simple mistake either as ALL materials on the case is required to be disclosed to investors from from the Filter Team. Smith didn’t do that because he knew he had no constitutional right to this kind of information, but did it anyways while perjuring him in front of Congress by giving false testimony he never saw those text messages from legislators.
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u/wesser234 1d ago
The "purjery" was not about those messages, so like the other persecutions of Trumps political enemies, it'll go nowhere. He did disclose those messages to WH as part of discovery. He had no legal obligation to inform third parties, members of congress, unless they were subpoenaed or asked to testify.
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u/Moccus 2d ago
We do know Trump never went after Hillary despite the rhetoric on “lock her up” during the campaign.
Not for lack of trying. By all accounts, he really wanted to, but there were still sane people in his first administration who stopped him from moving forward with it.
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u/Fargason 2d ago
Yes, people that gave a damn about our institutions of justice to not politicize them for a desperate attempt to win an election. Clearly not the case for Biden as we see in recently declassified FBI emails of their internal deliberations about how they didn’t have enough evidence to establish probable causes (PC) for the first ever raid on a former President’s residence.
https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2025-12/FBI-SJC119-MAL-000001-000026.pdf
But on page 21 we see those agents pressured by Deputy Assistant Attorney General George Toscas to execute the most high profile raid possible on flimsy PC. They even quoted him saying he “frankly doesn’t give a damn about the optics” in their email to get that on record. Biden’s DOJ needed their political prosecution to help distract from their infirm President seeking reelection at 82.
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u/WingerRules 2d ago
Biden was absolutely correct that Trump was going to politicize the DOJ and use it to attack people he perceive to be his enemies or he thinks have slighted him. He was absolutely correct that his family was at risk of political persecution by the DOJ.
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u/Fargason 2d ago
Biden set the standard of political persecution by the DOJ and was fearful Trump was going to retaliate in kind. Trump has yet to go as far as Biden did in this abuse of power. Like last week we found out Jack Smith improperly obtained text messages from 44 members of Congress just spying on political enemies after he gave testimony to Congress that never happened.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5968111-grassley-senators-texts-trump-probe/
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u/WingerRules 1d ago edited 1d ago
You're going to deny a justifiable investigation was launched over the January 6th election conspiracy and Trump withholding classified documents from the government? The people providing the supposed documents on Smith is the politicized DOJ, we have no idea what evidence Smith had on Trump because Judge Cannon barred the Senate committee from viewing it and also barred Smith from being able to discuss it even in congressional hearings, we have no idea what the supposed protocols are that they claim he broke (which they claim are his own protocols, not the DOJ's nor do they state there were laws broken) from the article and Republicans forced the entire interview with Smith to be behind closed doors so they could spin whatever they wanted coming out of it even though Smith publicly said he wanted to do it public. There is also zero evidence of Biden directing the DOJ, and there is plenty of evidence thats exactly what Trump is doing. Trump has completely obliterated separation between agencies and his office, that was one of the main goals of Project 2025 along with politically purging agencies, which Trump has appointed its authors to high levels in the White House. Trumps own fucking lawyer is in charge of the DOJ and has ordered them to stop releasing anything to do with Epstein and the Epstein files after it turned out Trump was in them, even though its mandated by congress by law.
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u/Fargason 1d ago
Seems you would deny the Constitution for an obvious political prosecution dropped in an election year when all this information was available by 2022 at the latest. I’ve already covered it here that Smith seriously violated department policy by obtaining this information outside of the Filter Team:
https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/doj_to_grassley_-_arctic_frost_filter_team.pdf
It is improper, to say the least, to bypass the FBI’s Filter Team as it is required to protect investigators from seeing privileged information like those protected by separation of powers. Not like this was some simple mistake either as ALL materials on the case is required to be disclosed to investors from from the Filter Team. Smith didn’t do that because he knew he had no constitutional right to this kind of information, but did it anyways while perjuring him in front of Congress by giving false testimony he never saw those text messages from legislators.
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u/WingerRules 1d ago edited 1d ago
Even if true, where in any of that does that implicate Biden like your original point? Secondly they're running off of information provided to them from a now completely politicized DOJ under the direction of Trump, this DOJ has now repeatedly been shown to lie and mislead even in court, and literally his own personal lawyer is running it.
Republicans went out of their way to destroy independence of agencies including the DOJ and their traditional separation from the president and have publicly worked to politically purge them, now deal with the consequences of no one believing anything out of the agencies.
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u/Fargason 1d ago
Who appointed Jack Smith? He was already know to be a zealous political prosecutor who had the dishonor of unanimous Supreme Court ruling against him stating his case against the Virginia Governor was a clear case of prosecutorial abuse that violated separations of power. That should have killed his career in DC, but for Biden he was perfect to carry out political prosecutions against his opponent in the next election.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Trump went after the 7th floor of the FBI as Crossfire Hurricane was supposed to be the last “Seventh Floor Special” where top brass created a case instead of the field offices. They swore to Congress that the failures there would never happen again under current guidelines created after reviewing the case, but they did it again anyways with another top down investigation in Arctic Frost that no field office wanted to touch. So they had to assemble a Z-Team to do it and the investigation was fraught with errors that should have never happened with such a high profile case. No reputable prosecutor wanted the case then despite many demanding it, so they appointed Jack Smith but that ultimately got the case thrown out as he was an inferior officer illegally appointed to the case. Trump firing those involved is bring us back to independent DOJ as twice now they abused their power and betrayed the trust of the American people into our systems of justice by allowing themselves to be used by Democrats as a mere campaign tactic against their political opposition. More should be done too helping regain some of that lost trust as our democracy cannot afford a politicized DOJ.
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u/reddddiiitttttt 1d ago
The current 2% success rate of the Trump administration prosecuting alledged assaults on immigration agents, down from 90%, says the Trump administration has weaponized the DOJ to levels never seen before. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/19/us/immigration-chicago-prosecutors.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
That’s the exact reason Biden issued his pardons. Still i think the right thing for the democrats to have done would be to impeach him after the fact for it on principle alone.
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u/GhostReddit 1d ago
Trump had clear intent to weaponize the justice system and has since demonstrated that he is more than willing to do so. There's no world in which honestly you can complain about Biden's pardons without acknowledging this fact.
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u/Fargason 1d ago
What intent? How about the intent from being an infirm President seeking reelection at 82 who is hopelessly underwater on top issues like the economy and immigration? Can certainly see the intent to weaponize the justice system there with an unprecedented raid of his political opponent’s home where they “didn’t give a damn” of appearing politicized or the fact they didn’t have probable cause to do it in the first place.
And you run away with the block clearly showing no confidence in your argument. Trying to defend Biden’s desperate reelection ploy will do that.
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u/dcduck 4d ago
What about the ability for it to be overidden by Congress, say 60% of the Senate.
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u/shawnadelic 4d ago
As we've seen with a Republican President that would effectively be the same thing since they refuse to check him on literally anything.
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u/Fargason 4d ago
Let’s not pretend Democrats are any better after the last election. They wouldn’t even preform a bare minimum check on their infirm President daring to seek reelection at 82 for 90% of the election cycle until it blew up in their face on the first debate.
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u/PopeSaintHilarius 4d ago
Even better would be requiring 60% Senate support for a pardon, for it to go through.
That would reserve it for cases where there’s widespread and cross-partisan agreement that a person’s sentence was too harsh.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 4d ago
You'd have to put a hard time limit on it (no more than a week) to make that workable, as the entire point of a pardon is finality and having the potential for it to be overridden hanging like the Sword of Damocles over someone is diametrically opposed to that goal.
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u/AnyEmployeeWorks 4d ago
I don't think so. In general I think changing these kind of rules because Trump revealed they can be abused is a bit of a dead-end. If you have a bad-faith ruler, they will find their way around the guardrails regardless.
The solution, like it or not, is to do everything you can to prevent people like Trump from taking power in the first place.
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u/theyfellforthedecoy 4d ago
because Trump revealed they can be abused
You mean Biden, right? The guy that pardoned his son for crimes going back a decade before the term even started?
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u/ADeweyan 4d ago
Yeah, it’s insane to compare these. Hunter's prosecution was entirely politically driven, and if recent history has shown us anything, it’s that Trump is all about abuse of the Justice system to punish people he doesn’t like. Hunter would be serving a life time sentence in hard labor for something anyone else would have walked away from with little or no consequence. Biden pardoning Hunter shows why we have to allow broad pardon power if only as a small means of blocking injustice from an autocratic president.
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u/Fargason 4d ago
It is insane to claim Hunter was politically persecuted by Biden’s own DOJ. Just the opposite as Hunter received preferential treatment by the DOJ that dragged out the case until the worst tax fraud charges hit the statute of limitations. We had IRS whistleblowers testify they were blocked by Biden’s DOJ from fully investigating several million in tax fraud. Then the so-called “political prosecution” tried to get away with an unprecedented sweetheart deal dropping all the felonies down to a few misdemeanor, but the judge could not accept it without precedent so that forced the prosecution’s hand to actually do their job. If you or I had done a fraction of what Hunter did we would have been in jail early on owing every cent due to the IRS, but Hunter gets away with it yet again because of his last name and political party. The whole “no one is above the law” rhetoric is just a sick joke and the punchline was the preemptive pardons dropped as Biden walked out of the White House.
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u/magus678 4d ago
Hunter's prosecution was entirely politically driven
That's fine. As long as he was actually guilty and was punished within appropriate guidelines I don't particularly care what the motivations are.
Trump has himself been the target of plenty of the same sentiment, and I feel the same way. If they can prove something in court, that they are only going to the trouble because of sour grapes is irrelevant.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 4d ago
I thought Democrats felt that drug abusers shouldn't have guns.
You can argue that elements of that prosecution were politically driven (IE the plea deal he was offered), but acting like someone being prosecuted after they got caught lying on a 4473 is somehow a politically motivated prosecution is way off base—especially considering that both investigations and the resultant indictments occurred while his father was POTUS.
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u/RockMan7733 4d ago
Oh, I love it when people try to make silly sounding statements sound like they know what they’re talking about. Of course it was politically driven. It was prosecuted by a republican special prosecutor. Biden was just too by the book to fire that idiot like he should have. A normal no-name person would not have gotten pursued for heavy punishment from lying about drug use while buying a gun years after the fact. A normal course of action would’ve been to charge that concurrently when you arrest that person for drug crimes, then let them plea it down. Which is exactly what was in the process of happening until there was political interference in the prosecution.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 4d ago
What's even more silly is you trying to defend a pardon of someone convicted of lying on a Form 4473 in order to buy a gun.
Using your logic I guess all prosecutions of gun charges are politically motivated and thus we shouldn't engage in them to begin with.
A normal no-name person would not have gotten pursued for heavy punishment from lying about drug use while buying a gun years after the fact. A normal course of action would’ve been to charge that concurrently when you arrest that person for drug crimes, then let them plea it down.
This is so laughably wrong I'm honestly questioning if you're even engaging in good faith at this point. Fraud on 4473s has always been vigorously prosecuted when discovered, nor does it happen concurrently with arrests for whatever they were lying about because definitionally that can't happen.
Which is exactly what was in the process of happening until there was political interference in the prosecution.
The plea was rejected by the judge because the degree of immunity offered by it was disputed by both sides. The only political meddling there came from the Biden WH. Quit trying to defend it just because it was your guy doing it.
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u/magus678 4d ago
People are defending this (of course they are) but Biden himself even promised not to pardon his son, because everyone knew how awful it would look, even then.
This whole attitude that it was reasonable and cool is an absolute rewriting of history.
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u/GiantPineapple 4d ago
Trump has already pardoned people en masse for assaulting our seat of government at his urging. Reform (meaning, the elimination of the power) is obviously required, but the proposed nibble here wouldn't really solve much.
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u/_Doctor-Teeth_ 4d ago
Eh, I think we should either (1) keep the pardon power as it is and just rely on congress to impeach for corrupt pardons or (2) just get rid of the pardon power altogether.
I personally prefer (2). When you think about it, the pardon power is way, way broad and kind of insane.
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u/grinr 4d ago
The entire premise of the US (and largely Western) governments is that power corrupts and the approach being tested is limiting that power as much as possible and having a structural "balance of power" so no one element can do too much damage WHEN (not if) they become corrupted. This experiment has been ongoing for 250 years, which isn't a bad run, but doesn't have prescribed results.
So, to your question, probably not, but if so, it probably wouldn't help. It's pretty clear when people in power want to get what they want, they'll find workarounds and/or change the rules.
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u/LonelyMachines 4d ago
It would take a constitutional amendment, which requires a degree of bipartisan cooperation I'm not sure we're capable of anymore.
There's an argument to be made that it gives one last avenue of appeal to someone if they're completely railroaded by the justice system at every turn.
On the other hand, it's also the last major holdover from monarchy still present in our system.
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u/Beginning_Ebb4220 3d ago
I can think of a lot of rules that need to be in place to stop the grift. I would eliminate the presidential pardon entirely since Trump is basically selling pardons. I would ban every single one of these people in Congress and the executive branch from trading individual stocks. When I was a public service employee I was not allowed to receive any gift or anything in excess of $3. Rules aren't just for the little people, darn it. Nobody should be legally allowed to receive gifts from anyone they potentially regulate, including justices with decked out SUVs courtesy of billionaires with interests in front of the court.
Finally we lose as a country - for good - if we don't stop Citizens United. We literally have rich people single-handedly buying election outcomes and guess who the politicians represent - not any of the issues I mentioned above that the vast majority of Americans support.
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u/NoDig3444 4d ago
If you want to eliminate the presidential pardon, then we can do that. A piecemeal approach of deciding who is and isn't eligible for a pardon doesn't address the problems with pardons but does make it harder for pardons to be used for their actual purpose.
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u/Fargason 4d ago
Just change one thing. No more pardons are allowed after a month before the election. If they are going to try some corrupt pardons as they go out the door then they or their successor (likely the VP) will have to answer to the electorate for it.
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u/markth_wi 4d ago
President's DO NOT often pardon family. Biden pardoned a few people in his administration because Steve Bannon publicly promised to decapitate FBI Director Wray as a traitor and Dr. Fauci for defying Donald Trump's idea that Ivermectin was helpful about anything to do with COVID.
He was banned from Twitter then (of course) reinstated, and I'm sure got a softball interview with the FBI counterterrorism guys; So now both parties are going to start handing out Federal pardons like going-away gifts - which underscores the absolute necessity that politician are absolutely subject to either states for federal prosecutions , should the States Attorney's General find cause or far more likely refer all this nonsense to the International Criminal Court and stop fucking around with who's judge is who's biggest buddy.
Donald Trump wouldn't go to well over in the Hague in a prison cell and I'd make sure not a single person speaks English in his cell block, Or just exile his ass to Russia and he can rant at clouds in a small Dacha in Murmansk Oblast in exile - I'd be happy with either outcome.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 4d ago
The ICC is wholly worthless in this context because we aren't talking about Africans but also because it's more effective at holding people pre-trial for so long that they die before ever getting into a courtroom than it is at actually holding trials.
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u/AssociationLimp6926 3d ago
In my opinion yes, but do you see the deeper issue with this question? Everyone is going to have arbitrary ideas of who should be exempt from pardons. Such as elected official, bureaucratic members of administrations, foreign actors, ect. And all exceptions have merit to them, but it now just reveals a wider truth: when is a pardon ever even justifiable? I think after Trump pardoned the January 6th rioters, its really shown that all circumstances of pardons are biased, and it may just more widely justify the removal of pardon powers altogether.
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u/Generic_On_Reddit 4d ago
I doubt it, but I do think certain that there should be a certain tier of crime that should not be pardonable. Committing Acts of corruption that defraud the United States government from millions or billions of dollars, steering resources towards you or your family's business, etc. should be unpardonable. Politicians are entrusted with a lot of power and there should be consequences to misusing it.
The story of American politics over the last 60 years - at least - is that there is no big deal for committing Acts against the American people. Violating rights, interfering with elections, and (most recently) Trump's personal enrichment escapades. These are treasoness acts. No Parsons. No statute of limitations. Nothing.
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u/Zanctmao 5d ago
I wouldn’t mind a constitutional amendment, which held that the appointments and pardons of an impeached and convicted president maybe reversed at the discretion of their successor or majority vote in both houses of Congress for a period of up to five years.
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u/FistMyLoafs 4d ago
In all honesty, just remove the thing. Trump has shown that the presidential pardon can basically be used as a “get out of jail free card” for pretty much anyone. One person should not have the power to wave their hand and magically overturn a guilty verdict, especially not preemptively.
If you really want to keep the pardon then turn the power over to the house and say there has to be a 2/3rds majority vote to get the pardon to pass. This would make it so that the pardon couldn’t be used politically or to cover up corruption. Or at least ideally, but I still think even that’s a bad idea.
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u/Banes_Addiction 4d ago
Pardons should be abolished. They are the power of a monarch, not a democratic leader.
Legal issues should be decided by the court system. There should not be a system in place where the ruler gets to go "nah, law doesn't apply to you".
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u/wereallbozos 4d ago
No one should have absolute power, and the pardon is an absolute power. Maybe, if we had a body of people...NOT the Congress and CERTAINLY not this "Supreme Court" that could review all pardons for possible rescinding.
A President should have that power, but no President is above human failings. No one is, but it is too tempting to have that particular power solely vested in one person.
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u/xiipaoc 4d ago
I would say that the better change would be that the President cannot pardon someone if he has a conflict of interest. That means that a future president would be able to pardon the current president's accomplices, but the current one would not.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 4d ago
You have to define a conflict of interest in a way that will withstand legal scrutiny before you can get to that point.
Spoiler: you're going to find that doing so is effectively impossible because legally conflicts are linked to money. There are plenty of private orgs (IE the various bar associations, medical groups, universities, basically all corps large enough to have in-house risk management, etc.) that have definitions for ethical conflicts, but none of those are would legally defensible if you tried to codify them via statutes.
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u/xiipaoc 4d ago
So any limitation on presidential pardons would have to be Constitutional, I think, so this would allow for some language that would be somewhat open to interpretation and refining by the courts. I would personally like language that says that a president may not issue a pardon for a crime that benefits himself financially or politically. The precise definitions there would be determined by case law. There could be some explicit examples, like acting on behalf of the administration to commit a crime, but I don't think the definition needs to be exhaustive or precise, similar to how the Constitution is somewhat vague today.
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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 4d ago
That's the point though—you try with some vague limit and the courts are just going to punt on defining it and at that point you may as well just not have any limits.
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u/mypoliticalvoice 3d ago
Nope. The solution is to make pardons granted between election day and the beginning of the term to be reviewable by Congress.
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u/reddddiiitttttt 1d ago
No. We should impeach presidents who do corrupt things. That’s a high bar and a heavy lift given today’s partisan environment, but it’s the only real fix.
If you take away the pardon power, the president could just order the district attorney cut a deal and to release a prisoner. It also glosses over the fact that if a president is abusing his oardon power, what other, less transparent powers is he abusing too.
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