You have to hand it to the left—they're masters at selective outrage. Democrats spent years cheering as Barack Obama and Joe Biden shattered records with their clemency sprees. Yet, suddenly, the president’s clemency powers are “controversial” because of Donald Trump… so much so that even Republicans are talking about trying to rein in pardon powers.
Let’s not forget, Barack Obama left the White House with more than 1,700 commutations under his belt, topping every modern president at the time, plus over 200 pardons, mostly for drug offenders he claimed were unfairly convicted because of race or something. Biden blew past that embarrassment, issuing over 4,000 commutations and 80 pardons, including jaw-dropping preemptive ones for Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley, the entire J6 Committee, and, of course, his coup de grâce: his blanket pardon of his son, Hunter Biden. Those weren't just controversial—they were shields for political cronies facing potential accountability from the incoming Trump administration.
Soon after starting his second term, President Trump granted full pardons to nearly 1,600 J6 defendants—folks the Biden DOJ had railroaded with inflated charges and rights violations for showing up at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Many faced assault raps that were bogus persecutions of peaceful protesters who just happened to be around that day.
He's since extended clemency to Rep. Henry Cuellar, George Santos, Silk Road's Ross Ulbricht, Rod Blagojevich and crypto king CZ Zhao, among others. Naturally, because it’s Trump, the hypocrisy parade marches in. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) became the first House Republican to cosponsor the so-called Pardon Integrity Act, led by Maryland Democrat Johnny Olszewski.
This constitutional amendment allows 20 House members and five senators to trigger a vote to nix any pardon, requiring a two-thirds vote in both chambers to pass.
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Bacon claims, "Presidential pardons are an important constitutional authority, but like all powers held by the executive branch, these authorities benefit from the appropriate checks and balances the Constitution envisioned." He adds, "Frankly, it is clear to me the pardon authority has been abused. I'm pleased to cosponsor Rep. Olszewski's Pardon Integrity Act, a constitutional amendment that establishes a narrow, commonsense guardrail."
According to Olszewski, "This amendment creates a narrow, commonsense check to ensure the pardon power is used fairly and responsibly—regardless of who occupies the White House."
Please. This isn't about fairness—it's a targeted hit on Trump. Remember how the media gushed over Biden's preemptive pardons or his absurd pardon of Hunter? I do.
Obviously, this doesn’t matter much because the amendment isn’t going to go very far. It needs two-thirds of Congress and 38 states to ratify—good luck with that. Whether it’s a good idea is perhaps worth debating, but I don’t understand why Trump’s pardons triggered this. Why wasn’t this discussed when Obama abused his clemency powers? Why wasn’t this discussed when Biden abused his clemency powers?
The problem is that Democrats always believe they’re entitled to do what they want, but Republicans aren’t. But the worst thing about it is when Republicans play right into the Democrats’ faux outrage.
