The President's Power to Pardon

I've been thinking lately about the extraordinary powers of the president, most specifically the power of the pardon.  I've researched it a bit, and found that most countries have given a similar power their presidents.  Here's a little more on the U.S. pardon power, and how and why it came about.

Under Article 11, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, the president of the U.S. is granted the power to pardon individuals for federal crimes, except in cases of impeachment.  The U.S. Supremem Court has interpreted this language to include the power to grant pardons, conditional pardons, commutations of sentence, conditional commutations of sentence, remissions of fines and forfeitures, respites and amnesties.

The pardon power was controversial from the outset.  Many anit-federalists remembered examples of royal abuses of the pardon power in Europe, and warned that the same would happen here.  Alexander Hamilton defended the pardon power in The Federalist Papers.  In his final days in office, George Washinton granted the first high-profile federal pardon to leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion.

Many pardons have been controversial.  Pardons are more often used for the sake of political expediency than to correct judicial error.  Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his misconduct in the Watergate scandal, and polls showed most Americans disagreed with this decision.  Andrew Johnson pardoned thousands of former Confederate officials and military personnel after the Civil War, Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to draft dodgers in the Vietnam era, and George H.W. Bush pardoned 75 people in connection with the Iran-Contra affair.  Bush, Clinton and Obama all have made controversial decisions involving the pardon.

With our current administration, many more pardons may soon be granted.  I have not yet found a reasonable explanation as to why those that have committed federal crimes should be pardoned.  If you or I committed a federal crime we would be in jail, and rightly so.  Why presidents have this power I will never understand, but they do, all over the world.  Regardless of whether Trump administration family and friends will be pardoned for their activities remains to be seen.  We don't have all the information yet.  Let's hope that one way or another we find out the truth, so that we can protect our country against Russia, or any country, from meddling in our elections in the future.