President Trump says he will pardon the January 6 rioters. President Biden just pardoned his son for crimes we may not even know about yet. “The Nation”—yes, the far Left crypto-Commie rag is nuts, but still—argued this week that Biden should issue a blanket pardon to all illegal immigrants.
What’s going on here?
What’s going on here is many things, but primarily an abject lesson in what happens when “ends justify the means”’ ideologues decide that that the greater good justifies trashing and even jeopardizing a Constitutional device that has been largely beneficial to the republic as a justice system safety valve. This is how it was intended by the Founders. Some Presidents have abused the pardon power; Bill Clinton pardoning fugitive Marc Rich in exchange for a huge donation by his ex-wife to Bubba’s Presidential library was one of the worst, but there have been many. Still, it’s useful to have a little bit of a king when our fallible court system messes up as it does with some regularity.
The current state of the pardon and clemency power, however, is a reflex reaction to the politicizing of the justice system combined with some outrageous conduct by elected and appointed officials on the theory that they could get away with it because law-breaking officials usually do. If enough of the threatened and theorized mutation actually comes to pass, I think, or at least I hope, that the public uproar will be sufficient to spark that rarity, a bi-partisan Constitutional amendment.
The prospect of the lamest of lame duck Presidents (meaning his puppeteers) pardoning the millions of illegal immigrants in the country to protect them from Trump’s promised deportations is the most disturbing of the possible developments. I’m not up to the task of determining whether such an act would be Constitutional or even whether it would accomplish the desired goal: pardoning the millions of illegals wouldn’t make them citizens. Still, it is a horrible idea.
There have been mass pardons before. On December 8, 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation granting full pardons, with restoration of all rights of property except slaves, to Confederates who would take an oath of allegiance to the United States and promise not to take up arms against it. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson, another very lame duck who was serving out a lonely term following a near-conviction after his impeachment, issued to all Confederate soldiers “unconditionally, and without reservation … a full pardon and amnesty for the offence [sic] of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late Civil War, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws.” George Washington had previously pardoned the participants in the Whiskey Rebellion too, so Trump’s promised J-6 pardons are definitely not outside Presidential precedents.
Biden’s sweeping pardon of his son is, however, and the much discussed prospective pardons of miscreants and presumed Trump targets like Anthony Fauci (who did break laws), Lix Cheney (also a law-breaker) and Adam Schiff (not a criminal, just a villainous asshole) would create the appearance of impropriety, a justification for greater public distrust, and be terrible precedents as well. For some reason I think that even addled Joe Biden and his corrupt and staggering party aren’t that far decayed (yet), but they both have surprised me in this regard before.
It is deliciously ironic, I must admit, to see the party that throttled the “Trump defies democratic norms!” being the one threatening to make the pardon power a partisan tool for the elite and non-citizens to break laws with impunity, after starting the cycle of criminalizing politics in the first place. Among all the massive hypocrisies we have witnessed from progressives and Democrats of late, this may be the worst of all.
Ethics Alarms 
What would Biden be pardoning the illegal imigrants for, crossing the border once?
He can’t pardon them for future crimes, can he?
5 minutes after being pardoned for entering the country illegally, they are still here illegally. Why couldn’t they be held accountable for a continuation of a crime?
Afterall, if I am assaulting you, and get pardon/clemency in the midst of beating you with a baseball bat(presumably I dislike your take on baseball salaries), and then continue to assault you with a continued beating – is this post-pardon continuation of the beating free from prosecution?
I am pretty sure that unlawful entry is a civil violation and that a removal (deportation) proceeding is civil in nature (though described as quasi-criminal).
I don’t think a pardon power extends to civil proceedings.
The suggestion that they can be pardoned is stupid.
what I find funny about the move for blanket pardons if people like Fauci or Jack Smith is that the left might have to acknowledge that lawfare is a real thing.
also, it would be so funny if Biden pardons the members of the J6 committee, when the immunity decision that made Sotomayor cry would probably be used to protect them.
But, if Biden pardons no one, I suspect Trump would not pursue anything and just move on. After all, he lies all the time and is full of bluster.
He has more important things to do.
-Jut
Not to be picky or anything, but I would have thought you would at least need to know the name of someone you’re pardoning.
Even if this were somehow legal, it is a terrible idea in so many ways.
Just when you thought he’d stooped to new lows by his continual efforts to have the government assume student debts……
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And, not unrelated really, I just read a story that detailed how the DOJ is continuing to arrest (after 4 years!) and try more and more people for the January 6th riots. I guess maybe they have a quota that they’re trying to meet by January 20th.
And the DC judges are gung ho evidently in convicting these folks and tossing them in jail.
I do really hope that Trump takes a good look and pardons or commutes sentences for a large number of the people who’ve been persecuted for this incident. Not the ones who committed violent crimes, but I think there’s a lot of folks convicted and tossed in jail for doing touristy type things — and — let’s not forget, a lot of the people there thought they were trying to save their country.
WTH sort of Monopoly card is that? “This ART may be kept…”
I just see this as a continuation of Obama’s policies. Under Obama, the president got to pass laws (DACA) that can’t be rescinded by future presidents. He also created arbitrary classes and exempted them from federal law (marijuana possession only for SOME states) and businesses with between 50 and 100 people for ACA.
I joked in 2015 that I should run for president on the platform that I would exempt every state that I won from federal income taxes and exempt every state that didn’t from deductions and exemptions from federal income taxes.
A pardon removes criminal liability, right? Simply pardoning illegal aliens would remove criminal liability for . . . what, exactly? Such a pardon would acknowledge that those pardoned have committed a crime, whether a misdemeanor or a felony, right? Doesn’t that play against the Left’s handbook that illegal entry is a civil matter, and not a crime?
Even assuming Biden has the authority to pardon illegal aliens, that only means those pardoned cannot be prosecuted for entering illegally; removal is a civil proceeding. The Pardoned can still be removed under immigration law.
jvb
I think that’s right. A legal ethics question was recently decided whether a pardon precluded bar discipline for a lawyer, like disbarment. Nope!
The Chinese are still getting a return on their investments with the Biden Crime Family©.
https://thefederalist.com/2024/12/12/biden-quietly-commuted-sentences-of-chinese-spies/