![]() ![]() First, Trump would have to lose the Republican nomination, and he’s currently the strong favorite. We are still far away from getting to anything like this place. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must.” It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. Ford didn’t go around bragging that he’d pardon Nixon to garner attention and curry favor with Nixon supporters, while Nixon, for all his desperate flaws, was a man of considerable substance and achievement.įord, of course, justified his act of clemency on grounds of moving on from, as he put it in his national address, “a tragedy in which we all have played a part. The most famous example from high politics is, of course, Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon for offenses related to Watergate, although that episode dates from a different era when politics was a more serious business for more serious people. It extends to “every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.”Īmong other things, it allows for the consideration of factors that the law alone might not take into account. The Supreme Court called it “unlimited” in the 1886 case Ex parte Garland. The presidential pardon power is sweeping. government of the leader of the opposition party. ![]() The bind represented by Trump’s indictment is that, based on the evidence we have now, he appears to be caught dead to rights at the same time, nothing good is going to come from the political and legal warfare inevitable with the prosecution by the U.S. The middle of a primary campaign is not the best place to carefully think through the various equities involved in the criminal case against Trump and potential clemency, but the idea of pardoning Trump is a sensible one that, depending on the exact circumstances, truly could serve the public interest. ![]()
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