There was a time when “the pardon” was rare. Yes, just before Thanksgiving Day, presidents traditionally “pardon” a turkey or two. Today turkeys are “pardoned” all the time. It is a habit of recent presidents.
One could say that President Donald Trump and former President Joe Biden have set our nation on a bad course in a number of ways, but maybe none of them are worse than their abuse of the presidential pardon.
Granted, Biden ignored the millions of illegals flowing into the United States for four years in an unprecedented manner. And Trump seems obsessed with impressing his base by going after black and brown people in ways that remove or diminish economic opportunities for these groups.
His administration has allowed discrimination against black Americans to go unchallenged. It has allowed racial profiling of minorities so they can be removed due to the mere suspicion of them having done anything wrong. These actions have taken away the freedoms of countless people and have instilled fear in many. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been engaged in strikes against targets off the coast of Venezuela, killing many in recent days as alleged drug traffickers without displaying evidence or allowing for due process.
Where is the law in all this?
As former President Richard Nixon once said, if the president does it, it cannot be illegal (let us remember Nixon, however, was forced to resign). Yet, Trump seems to want to practice Nixon’s errant concept.
And that is why we have to stop the pardons or somehow better manage the application of the pardon. At the very least, we should stop the president from pardoning anyone who directly answers to the president or is up to two-levels from being a direct report into the president.
I believe a simple vote of Congress could adopt this practice. But for obvious reasons, we would need an “Epstein files release” type of veto-proof vote. It could actually – like keeping the filibuster – help save America from becoming a banana republic.
Today, no one in the Trump administration has any fears about the repercussions of breaking the law. There is not a bookie on this planet who would bet that Trump would not give any of his supporters a pardon. Needless to say, that is not good. That would truly affirm Nixon’s mantra that “the president is above the law.”
There are a number of issues that are leading us in that direction today and you do not have to use much of your imagination to find examples. And we must not forget that it is often the coverup, not the initial crime, that can prove damning.
I will just mention two:
1. The Epstein files, including the redactions that started back in the first quarter of the year are being done faster than Santa’s helpers can make toys for Christmas.
2. The U.S. bombing of defenseless Venezuelans on boats, killing scores of people. This seems to demonstrate the administration’s reckless disregard for due process and the sanctity of life.
I hope and pray that all the top officials in each of these areas, and in other areas, will do the right thing. But retaining the cover of a pardon down the road gives them the freedom to comply with the wishes of the person capable of giving them a pardon. This serves to embolden the president. Just ask Ghlislane Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice, who is actively begging for a pardon which has not been ruled out by Trump. However, if you take away the potential prospects of a presidential pardon, folks will be more inclined to abide by the letter of the law.
A drug kingpin – maybe the equivalent of Al Capone in the liquor business during prohibition – was pardoned by Trump. People who beat up and injured police officers have been pardoned. At this point in his presidency, I would challenge historians to find another president who has pardoned more people within his first 10 months in office.
So, no, it is not the power of tariffs, the unilateral power to start a war with oil-rich Venezuela, or placing soldiers on American streets. All of these actions would truly be direct infractions of the Constitution. A seventh grader would be able to read and understand this. It is the pardon power that truly has been Trump’s not-so-secret weapon.
Enter Biden. He is the master of the pardons, as well as the creator of the “future pardon.” Biden had logged nearly 4,300 pardons – many were done with the autopen. Excluding Trump and former President Barack Obama’s nearly 2,000 pardons, one would need to go back to Lyndon Johnson to find a president who issued more than a few hundred pardons.
The founders of our country did not intend the pardon to be used to protect one’s loyal supporters. They are used now to protect criminals and make someone invincible to the law.
Secondly, our prayers go out to the two National Guard soldiers who were recently shot in Washington, D.C. One lost her life, and the other is fighting for his life. Why?
Trump may have made history by being the first president during the following scenario: an American soldier gets shot to death by a non-American on American soil.
There are numerous reasons for this. Let’s start by saying the soldiers had no business on the streets of America. This unnecessary deployment made them targets for the insane and those who hate America.
The soldiers were not trained to be police officers – plain and simple. If you want more security for a city, Mr. Trump, then give more funding to cities so they can hire more police officers – duh. They actually are trained to patrol cities.
Trump placing National Guard soldiers on our city’s streets is like putting Babe Ruth on a basketball court. It is not what the Babe does – he was a great athlete but not a great basketball player.
Just because you are a good athlete does not make you a star athlete in another field. And just because you wear a uniform, carry a gun, and have tanks for back up, does not make you a police officer capable of patrolling and managing the security of an American city. Heck, it is so disrespectful to the hundreds of thousands of well-trained police officers we have in this country.
We must put guardrails around the use of the presidential pardon, and we must let soldiers be soldiers and police officers be police officers. All the other presidents understood this basic principle.
Gary Franks served three terms as a congressman from Connecticut’s 5th District. He was the first Black conservative elected to Congress and first Black Republican elected to the House in nearly 60 years. Host: Podcast “We Speak Frankly” www.garyfranksphilanthropy.org, (C)2025 Gary Franks. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.