What You Need to Know About Presidential Pardon Power
Legally speaking, nothing can stop a president from employing pardons to short-circuit even a prosecution that threatens him personally.
Photographer: Eric Thayer/Bloomberg
The U.S. president has vast constitutional power to grant pardons to people facing possible prison terms or to commute the sentences of individuals already in jail. Legally speaking, nothing can stop a president from employing pardons to short-circuit even a prosecution that threatens him personally. According to Trump’s lawyer, representatives of several people caught up in federal investigations into Trump’s 2016 campaign and subsequent presidency have inquired about whether Trump might pardon their clients.
It’s an act of presidential forgiveness rooted in Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution that wipes the slate clean for the recipient, even halting judicial proceedings that are under way. Alexander Hamilton, explaining the purpose of pardons in Federalist Paper No. 74, said that the severity of a criminal code demands "an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt," without which "justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel." George Washington pardoned farmers convicted of treason after the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion. Grover Cleveland cleared Mormon polygamists in 1894 as part of Utah becoming a state. George H.W. Bush pardoned aides tied up in the Iran-Contra scandal. Barack Obama commuted the sentences of hundreds of non-violent drug offenders.