Opinion
Trump Corrupted the Presidential Pardon. Biden Must Repair It.
There are clear ways to reform the pardon process to work as the founders intended.
By The Editorial Board
The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
Dec. 23, 2020
Credit…Illustration by The New York Times; Photographs by Anna Moneymaker and Hannah Yoon for The New York Times
President Trump doesn’t use his pardon power often, but when he does, he abuses the process for all it’s worth.
In less than four years in office, Mr. Trump has made a mockery of mercy, doling out clemency to some of the most deplorable people in the country while ignoring tens of thousands of more deserving applicants.
He did it again Tuesday night, issuing 20 pardons and sentence commutations, many to a rogues’ gallery of wrongdoers who shouldn’t have been on anyone’s mercy list. These included four Blackwater security guards convicted in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians, three corrupt Republican former members of Congress and two figures who pleaded guilty as part of the special counsel’s Russia investigation.
Sure, Mr. Trump tossed a bone to a few people sentenced under outrageously harsh three-strikes laws, like Weldon Angelos, who got 55 years in prison for selling marijuana while carrying a handgun. But those are the exceptions. In general, if you are not a xenophobic sheriff, a right-wing troll, a homicidal military officer, an old friend or a turkey, your odds of being pardoned by this president hover around zero.
What makes Mr. Trump’s clemency record even worse is how paltry it is. As the old joke goes, the food is terrible, and the portions are too small. To date, Mr. Trump has issued a not-so-grand total of 65 pardons and sentence commutations — fewer in more than 100 years than any other president who didn’t die or get assassinated soon after taking office. He may yet add a few to that list, if only by pre-emptively pardoning his lawyers and family members.
Gift Subscriptions to The Times, Cooking and Games.
Starting at A$25.
Mr. Trump’s stingy, self-serving approach to clemency is due in part to his transactional view of the law as something to punish his enemies and to protect himself, his friends and his allies. But it’s a power that is easy to abuse because it is nearly unlimited. While Mr. Trump may be the most flagrant abuser, he’s far from the first. From Bill Clinton’s pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich to Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor Richard Nixon, there are plenty of examples in recent years alone of presidents of both parties exploiting mercy for dubious reasons.
Nicholas Kristof: A behind-the-scenes look at Nicholas Kristof’s gritty journalism, as he travels around the world.
The solution isn’t for presidents to pardon fewer people; it’s to pardon more, with more consideration and more consistency.
As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take over, he has the opportunity to reimagine this deeply important but long-abused power and make it work more as the founders intended: as a counterweight to unjust prosecutions and excessive punishments. “Without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist No. 74.
If ever there was a moment to reform the system, it is now. The decades-old American prison crisis has dumped millions of people behind bars, many suffering under hugely disproportionate sentences. Last summer, the nation was engulfed by mass protests over criminal-justice abuses, and prisons continue to endure many of the nation’s worst coronavirus outbreaks. Recent federal laws, including one signed by Mr. Trump, have alleviated some of the most egregious sentences, but they haven’t done nearly enough. There are currently nearly 14,000 clemency petitions waiting for action. And unlike so many other parts of the federal government, clemency is one area in which presidents can do a lot of good on their own, and fast.
The New York Times