I've seen an outpouring of outrage today about pardons. In particular, Joe Biden pardoned several family members and a bunch of Democratic politicians. Sacré bleu! What kind of a precedent does this set for Donald Trump?
I get this—but only up to a point. Does anyone even remember Trump's pardon record from four years ago? You probably remember part of it: all the cronies and friends who were granted clemency, mostly at the end of his term. Here they are:
| Michael Flynn | Paul Manafort | Roger Stone |
| Rod Blagojevich | Joe Arpaio | Dinesh D'Souza |
| Conrad Black | Bernie Kerik | Steve Bannon |
| George Papadopoulos | Charles Kushner | Scooter Libby |
| Alex van der Zwaan | Michael Milken |
But wait! Do you also remember that Trump pardoned seven former Republican congressmen solely because they were Republicans?
| Chris Collins | Duncan Hunter | and his wife |
| Rick Renzi | Robin Hayes | Mark Siljander |
| Steve Stockman | "Duke" Cunningham | and his wife |
These weren't just formal pardons, either. The first four were actually in prison or on probation when they were pardoned.
And that's not all. Trump also pardoned a massive number of other Republican fundraisers and lower-level politicos, many of them people who had donated money directly to Trump. Hold your breath:
| Patrick Nolan | Angela Stanton-King | David Safavian |
| Paul Pogue | Alfonso Costa | Philip Kay Lyman |
| Mary McCarty | John Tate | Jesse Benton |
| Paul Erickson | Elliott Broidy | Tommaso Buti |
| George Gilmore | William Henry | Douglas Jemal |
| Kenneth Kurson | Michael Liberty | Glen Moss |
| Hillel Nahmad | Casey Urlacher | Albert Pirro |
| Jonathan Braun | Eliyahu Weinstein |
And even that's not all. Trump had a real weakness for pardoning people guilty of Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud, hospital fraud, and various other forms of health care scams. Most of them were from Florida, coincidentally enough.
He was also partial to pardoning police officers, military members, and military contractors who were convicted of unlawful behavior. This was apparently his way of showing that MAGA had no patience with woke ideas that constrained the conduct of our police and fighting men.
Here's his record, as told by the world's greatest font of information:
Since 1921, only two Presidents granted fewer clemencies than Trump.... 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.
....Of the 237 grants of clemency by Trump, only 25 came through the Office of the Pardon Attorney'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.
....A late December 2020 analysis by Harvard Law School's Jack Goldsmith 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."
....Trump's use of the pardon power was marked by an unprecedented degree of favoritism. He frequently granted executive clemency to his supporters or political allies, or following personal appeals or campaigns in conservative media.... Many of Trump's grants of clemency were criticized by the federal agents and prosecutors who investigated and prosecuted the cases.
....Many wealthy individuals paid tens of thousands of dollars to former advisors to Trump for them to lobby Trump to grant pardons, bypassing the review process of the Office of the Pardon Attorney. Trump former personal lawyer John M. Dowd was hired by a number of convicts to lobby Trump for clemency, taking advantage of his direct access to Trump's White House Counsel's Office. Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union and a lobbyist close to Trump administration, also lobbied Trump for clemency on behalf of their clients.
If you want to trash Biden for his pardons, that's fine. He deserves (some of) it. But spare me any crocodile tears about the terrible precedent he's setting. Four years ago Trump did infinitely worse than Biden and nobody was wailing and crying back then for a constitutional amendment to restrain the pardon power. Hell, Trump also did far worse than Biden this very day.
If you were on the bandwagon to impeach Trump over his pardons four years ago, you can go to town on Biden. If you weren't, I really don't want to hear from you.
Four years ago Trump did infinitely worse than Biden and nobody was wailing and crying back then for a constitutional amendment to restrain the pardon power.
Yes, but Biden is from the Democrat Party. Sheesh!
Also, Biden probably forced Trump to do those 2020 pardons by mind control.
Preach it from the mountaintop!
"spare me any crocodile tears about the terrible precedent [Biden]'s setting"
Hear, hear!
And who are these people who are tongue-clucking about precedent? We're talking about a guy who don't need no stinkin' precedent. A guy who don't care about no stinkin' precedent. A guy whose entire public life consists in doing what he wants regardless of precedent, and especially if it has no precedent. Precedent means less than nothing to this guy.
What a ridiculous objection to trot out, and at bottom nothing more than a variation on Murc's Law that calls for a serious rethinking of priors on the objector's part.
If you want to trash Biden for his pardons, that's fine. He deserves (some of) it.
Hard disagree. There is no problem with pardons for people that Trump has threatened to go after despite no evidence of wrongdoing. Biden did the right thing. Direct all your venom for Trump. That's the break with precedent that's worrying.
+10.
Another +10
So that a +30, now.
It is long past time to get rid of the President's power to pardon or commute sentences. It was always susceptible to abuse and corruption and combined with the Courts decision that the President can't be prosecuted for "official acts" it is an open invitation to political corruption.
I am with Josh Marshall on this one. Keep it and use it far more than it has been used.
When one party represents organized crime, I think it is very dangerous.
I completely disagree. There’s only one person who has the authority to do that. The proper remedy is to stop electing a felon to the presidency.
How do you propose to do that? The next Trump, or Hitler, or Stalin is always waiting in the wings for the opportunity to abuse power. In my view, the only way to prevent that is to make it more difficult.If nothing else, Trump has proven that being a career criminal and felon isn't an obstacle to wielding power.
This.
Trump is a shitbag and his pardons sucked and suck again
Biden is fine and I don't really care.
The pardoning power itself is absolute bullshit, and will be used by bad actors for way worse things than a good actor could ever use it for good.
See, uh, 1,500 insurrectionists who just got pardoned.
I fully support Biden's pardons and am very glad he did them. They were necessary to spare the country from the sorry spectacle of a four-year vendetta from a vengeful narcissist.
Sure it's unprecedented, but Trump is unprecedented. American democracy has always been predicated on the assumption that we would never elect a piece of shit to the presidency. Now we've done it - twice!