When Cabinet nominees appear before relevant Senate committees for confirmation hearings, questions are often asked as much to score partisan political points as to determine qualifications for office.
The same goes for Pam Bondi, President Trump's nominee for attorney general. Her recent headline appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee reflects a determination to use the president's pardon power as a window to relive the events of January 6th.
Specifically, during his interrogation, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) used the image of a brave Capitol Police officer to corner Bondi. he asked.“Do you think the January 6 rioters convicted of assaulting police officers should be pardoned?” Bondi refused to take the bait, saying pardons are within the president's sole authority. First of all, let me make one thing clear. But she added that if asked, she would provide advice on a case-by-case basis, as she has done throughout her distinguished career as a prosecutor.
Later, under questioning from Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware), Bondi reconstructed the story and offered what she had discovered. Almost blanket commuting these days Joe Biden's federal death sentence is 'abhorrent'. she is not alone.
Among the unique constitutional powers reserved only to the president, Article 2 empower “…granting reprieves and pardons for crimes against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.'' Biden activated that authority on December 23, giving 37 of the 40 federal death row inmates an early Christmas present. I gave it. commute the sentence to life imprisonment.
Some people are commuting almost on blankets, Kaboni Savage. Before serving four terms in the House of Representatives, I served as U.S. Attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania and District Attorney for Delaware County. My decision to seek the death penalty for a number of defendants was not made lightly. I weighed my Christian beliefs about forgiveness with my duties in office and acted as I believed I had to.
Like any rational person, this obligation has sometimes caused me to struggle. But when it comes to Kaboni Savage, there was and is no question.
Unrepentant to this day, Savage led a violent drug ring that used murder and intimidation to build a dominant criminal organization in eastern Pennsylvania. after all Convicted of 12 murdersSavage waged a campaign of violence and fear that affected everyone in our region.
he ordered an incendiary bombing Federal witness's home. The attack left six people dead, including four young children. A tape recording of a phone call from the prison showed a witness joking that barbecue sauce should be poured over the bodies of his family members, who had been charred in the flames.
Savage is pure evil. What's interesting is that while Durbin didn't feel the need to mention Savage's name, he deftly threw a retort right under Bondy's jaw about the possibility of a presidential pardon.
Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the president's pardon power comes under the most scrutiny during presidential transitions. This is the time when you are most powerful. In some ways, it's almost a rite of passage, with precedents set by some widely admired Americans. As president, George Washington rode horseback and led government militia into western Pennsylvania to suppress the armed anti-tax demonstrations of the Whiskey Rebellion. Then he made his own power to grant pardons; To many of them.
Upon becoming president, Thomas Jefferson railed against the sedition laws of the early 1800s, which he believed suppressed political opposition. a pardon was granted To those convicted under these laws.
In 1863, Abraham Lincoln granted a full pardon to Confederate soldiers loyal to the United States.
I remember that Gerald Ford was going to pardon Richard Nixon. He paid a political price, but he helped restore our nation.
bill clinton Pardoned tax evader Marc Rich in his final hours in office. This looked very sneaky when it turned out that Rich's ex-wife was donating Over $500,000 Visit the Clinton Library and Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign in New York.
As a former prosecutor, I argue that presidential pardons have a serious role. in fact, Pardon Law Office Within the Department of Justice, scrutinizes thousands of petitions to identify and investigate meritorious appeals for possible pardons or clemency consideration recommended to the President. Consistent elements such as acceptance of responsibility, post-conviction rehabilitative actions, nonviolence, and the passage of time strengthen a petitioner's case.
President Barack Obama has granted pardons to more than 1,750 nonviolent drug offenders. The second route is to appeal directly to the president, usually through the efforts of powerful insiders who can get the president's ear. In reality, the number is much smaller, but Trump and Michael Flynn Joe Biden and his son Hunter are examples of each acting unilaterally.
There is something unsettling about the idea of blanket pardons and commutations for activists on January 6th. I recognize that Trump has every right to grant them, but Americans have remained wise since then. While I don't agree with Joe Biden commuting the sentences of federally convicted murderers, I do acknowledge that he acted in his constitutional capacity and why he made that choice. also explained. That's his prerogative.
In a pointed conversation with Mr. Bondi, Mr. Coons suggested there may be common ground with Congress and the attorney general in institutionalizing reforms to the pardon process that he could recommend to the president. It's not clear why the president would welcome guardrails, but perhaps reforming this process could benefit the American people and allow him to demonstrate bipartisan agreement at the beginning of this new presidency.
Former Congressman Pat Meehan (R-Pennsylvania) is a former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, a former District Attorney for Delaware County, and currently runs Harvey Run Strategies.
