Cryptocurrency billionaires. Disgraced politicians. Reality TV stars. And hundreds of political allies.
Since taking office for a second term, United States President Donald Trump has issued more than 1,840 acts of clemency to a range of personalities.
Presidents have long stirred controversy in their choices of people to pardon. But experts argue that the way Trump has exercised his clemency power violates rules and norms in place for more than a century.
Now, they warn that pardons and commutations have become transactional, with Trump using them to reward those loyal to his agenda.
Some beneficiaries have been supporters of his “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement, including the hundreds of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Biden was at over 4K clemency/pardons, Trump you gotta up those numbers, those are rookie numbers
(this isn’t new, this has been a problem for many years, I first noticed this with Bill Clinton but it may be even older than that)
I looked it up and there was a good rationale based on fairness behind Biden’s pardons. Most of Biden’s pardons also weren’t really pardons, but commutations of sentences: “Context: The thousands pardoned on Friday were “serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today,” Biden’s statement said.” https://www.axios.com/2025/01/17/biden-presidential-pardons-clemency-record Which seems fair and also needed to me. Imagine having 10 years left to serve of your 20 years sentence, while new convicts only receive max 5 years for the same crime.
What Biden did with pardons was completely different from what Trump is doing with them.
The obese child rapist is violating rules and norms that are accepted? No way, what a shocker.
This fat cunt has never felt a consequence for his thousands and thousands of crimes in his entire life…and yet americans voted, or enabled, him to be ‘president’ twice. Then wonder why he’s breaking more rules and committing more crimes.
Jesus fucking Christ!This article works WAY too hard to frame this as a maybe. He is without a doubt abusing this system for cash, degrading public trust in justice, re-victimizing victims and letting emboldened Donald back to prey on the public.
Remember when the church used to sell “indulgences” for cash as pardons for sins? What trump is doing is the modern day version of it and its just as disgusting.
It’s definitely worse. Vague threats of “God’s wrath” aren’t real. Federal prison is real. And he’s setting criminals free from it
Oh, I’ve got an idea:
Why not write a formal protest?
You can nail it to his door.
Pardon power needs to go.
I’d argue the biggest problem with the pardon power is that it isn’t used enough.
Enormous numbers of people have been sentenced wrongly, sadistically, or for purely political reasons. These folks rarely get clemency of any sort. Obama and Biden were incredibly stingy in who they released. Modern liberal governors are even worse.
It is galling to live in a hyper-carceral state and watch rich assholes slip through the cracks. But biggest the problem is the obscene number of people in prison to begin with.
The solution should be justice reform, not giving politicians God mode and then chiding them if they use it wrong.
The entire system needs to go
I was to understand that the people that can afford his bribes generally aren’t locked up to begin with
This man needs to face a treason trial
That’s a fancy way to say “corruption”. Abuse of pardon power is impeachable.
