The Pardon Power

There is a long history of the pardon power in the US, and legal scholars have vigorously debated the use and misuse of the pardon power. In a hyper-political world in which "politics" has replaced justice in so many ways, it is critical to understand the fundamental basis of the use of the pardon power. Wehle (2024) provides a scholarly insight into the controversy.

Without belaboring the multiplicity of legal perspectives, a neophyte can surely use a common sense threshold when evaluating the merit of a presidential pardon: Is the pardon just? On what basis or bases can a pardon be considered to be just?

Some, including Democrats, have tied themselves in a knot of equivocation and confusion without evaluating any common sense threshold or parameter. The fallacy of presumption becomes an unfortunate error in reasoning when the underlying cause/s of a pardon is/are cavalierly ignored. That is, the central issue is not a presidential pardon or the issuer of a presidential pardon per se, but the antecedent(s) or underlying condition(s) that prefaced the issuance of a pardon in the first place.

Accordingly, evaluators of presidential pardons are encouraged to answer two common sense or basic questions before pontificating on a "controversial" pardon decision: (i) What is the precedential punishment for an act (violation) necessitating a pardon? (ii) Is the judicial process and proposed (or actual) punishment of the violation cruel and unusual?

When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir? (John Maynard Keynes)

When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir? (John Maynard Keynes)

Why is the oligarchic media coverage of presidential pardons so imbalanced?

Further reading:

Wehle, K. (2024). Pardon Power: How the pardon system works—and why. Woodhall Press.