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MWEG Response to Jan. 6 Pardons
President Donald Trump’s indiscriminate pardons of those who participated in the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, fly in the face of the rule of law, legitimizing and excusing political violence when wielded against one’s opponents. Those who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection imposed chaos and terror on a time-honored process of certifying election results, disrupting the peaceful transfer of political power. While the use of pardons by presidents from both parties has been abused over past decades, with a particular escalation more recently by President Biden, President Trump’s permissive and expansive pardon of more than 1,500 individuals, over 1,000 of whom pleaded guilty, is uniquely disturbing in its disregard…
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Presidential Pardons: Possibilities, Precedents, and Problems
With presidential pardons in recent news, MWEG offers a Q&A to sort through possibilities, precedents, and potential problems with this presidential power. Q: What are the purposes and types of presidential pardons?A: This power allows a president to forgive criminal offenses through pardons, amnesty, commutation, and reprieve. Informed by the British monarchy, the executive power to pardon was intended to add elements of mercy and clemency to the Constitution. The assumption held that men of virtue would exercise this power for the good of the people and not for their own purposes. Pardons grant the person complete legal forgiveness of a crime, as if it had never happened. Amnesty does…
