The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

What is the presidential pardon power and what are its limits? Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution vests the president with a broad but limited power “to grant Reprieves and Pardons.” According to the Supreme Court, the pardon power is intended as a tool for justice and mercy (an “act of grace”) and to further “the public welfare.” As one federal court has held: “The President, who exercises that power as the elected representative of all the People, must always exercise it in the public interest.”

While the presidential pardon power is expansive, it is not, according to federal courts, “limitless.” To the contrary, as “part of the Constitutional scheme,” it is subject to several express and structural constitutional constraints. The Pardon Clause makes explicit that pardons may only extend to “Offenses against the United States,” meaning state criminal offenses and civil liability are not pardonable, and that they may not be granted for “Cases of Impeachment.” But these are not the only limitations. As the Supreme Court explains, limitations may otherwise be “found in the Constitution.” In particular, according to Protect Democracy, four categories of pardons violate core constitutional provisions and principles and constitute abuses of power:

1. Presidential pardons cannot place the president above the law

Two kinds of pardons would function to place a president above the law: a self-pardon and a self-protective pardon (that is, a pardon that has the intent and effect of impeding an investigation into a president or his interests and that would thus amount to a self-pardon). The president is not a king, but rather “‘of the people’ and subject to the law.” The Framers were explicit that the nation’s presidents, unlike British kings, would be “liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of the law.” In a direct affront to this principle, self- and self-protective pardons would place a president beyond the law’s reach.

2. Presidential pardons cannot undermine other parts of the Constitution, including constitutional rights

No one power vested with a branch of government can be used to run roughshod over other parts of the Constitution, including constitutional rights. The pardon power is no exception. Nor can the pardon power be used to prevent courts from enforcing orders protecting constitutional rights. Consider a president who pardoned an individual held in contempt of court. The Supreme Court has held that the judiciary’s role in our constitutional system hinges on the ability of courts to prosecute contempt independently—that is, without relying on the executive branch. Such a pardon would subvert a court’s ability to enforce its orders, making “a mere mockery” of the judiciary’s constitutional powers.

3. Presidential pardons cannot violate criminal law

Pardons cannot be used to obstruct justice or as part of a bribery scheme. Such pardons would violate certain federal criminal laws enacted by Congress and would thus be unlawful. The president cannot exempt himself from criminal laws. And in the event that the president violates the law, he is not immune from liability by virtue of having used an official act to commit the violation.

4. Presidential pardons cannot license future lawbreaking on the president’s behalf

Granting pardons in order to in effect give license to future lawbreaking would also breach the president’s duty to faithfully execute the law—particularly when the president’s own interests are implicated. Such pardons would also serve the president’s personal interests given his own status as a criminal defendant for his role in the insurrection. As such, they would violate the president’s duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”—that is, to exercise presidential powers on behalf of the public interest, not as a means of self-protection.

Over the last few decades, the presidential power of pardon has been abused.  George Will cites University of Virginia law professor, Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash, and his new book, The Presidential Pardon: The Short Clause with a Long, Troubled History, to place this presidential power in perspective.

• Bill Clinton greased the downward slide. He pardoned his half-brother, who then made a fortune lobbying his sibling, the president, to pardon, among others, a Gambino mob associate. As Hillary Clinton began seeking a U.S. Senate seat, her husband commuted the sentences of 16 members of a Puerto Rican group that had detonated more than a hundred bombs in the United States. He pardoned Marc Rich, a fugitive who owed $48 million in taxes. Rich’s ex-wife made a $450,000 contribution to Clinton’s presidential library, gave $100,000 to Hillary’s Senate campaign, and $1 million to the Democratic Party.
• This was unseemly enough, but Prakash says, “Something has qualitatively changed over the past two presidencies.” Leaving office, Biden gave preemptive pardons to a slew of family members. Prakash: “For many years, Joseph Biden had been involved in a sordid business, where he was the product.” Family members charged for access to him. He gave preemptive pardons to two brothers, his sister and her husband, and a sister-in-law. Before the 2024 election, he said, regarding his egregiously corrupt son Hunter, “I will not pardon him.” After the election, he did.
• In Trump’s first term, he pardoned his daughter’s father-in-law, who, for vengeance against his brother-in-law who had testified against him, hired a prostitute, filmed her encounter with the brother-in-law, and mailed the tape to his sister.

Editorially, the New York Times writes, “The Constitution grants sweeping pardon powers to the president, which means that public opinion has historically been the only check on that power. The risk of a backlash is the reason that presidents have waited until their last days in office to issue many pardons and commutations, especially dubious ones to family members (like Hunter Biden) or political allies (like Caspar W. Weinberger, whom George H.W. Bush pardoned). The potential for a backlash also made presidents cautious about the number of pardons they issued. They understood that there could be an outcry if somebody who received a pardon later committed a new crime. The pardon system has also relied on the decency of American presidents. President Trump has abandoned this approach. His self-serving pardons are so numerous that public attention cannot keep up with them. He has created a veritable pardon industry, in which people with White House connections accept payments from wealthy convicts. Among those on whom he has bestowed freedom are dozens of people convicted of fraud. He has also pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras, who helped traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States, and Ross Ulbricht, who was serving a life sentence for running Silk Road, a sprawling criminal enterprise that sold drugs. There seems to be no crime too ugly for a Trump pardon.”

Worst of all, Mr. Trump granted clemency on the first day of his second term to everyone who stormed the Capitol on 6 January 2021. “He did not distinguish between rioters who were relatively peaceful and those who attacked police officers, as Vice President JD Vance said should be the case. About 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters received a clean slate, regardless of their actions.” What has been the result of this broad pardon? The results are disastrous. At least 12 of the pardoned rioters have since been charged with other serious crimes, including child molestation, assault, harassment, murder plots and charges related to a vicious dog attack.

“The American public deserves to understand the mayhem that the Jan. 6 pardons have unleashed. Among the 12 serious recidivists whom we are aware of, four were in jail or prison at the time of the pardon, and they quickly went on to commit more crimes:”

• On March 5, a court in Florida sentenced Andrew Paul Johnson to life in prison for molesting a 12-year-old boy and a girl of the same age. To keep the children quiet, Mr. Johnson is said to have promised to bequeath to them part of a Jan. 6 restitution payment from the federal government that he claimed he would receive. He used the online gaming platforms Discord and Roblox to reach out to the children after Mr. Trump freed him from prison. On Jan. 6, Mr. Johnson entered the Capitol through a broken window and accosted police officers.
• In the past two months, Jake Lang destroyed an ice sculpture outside the Minnesota State Capitol, leading to a felony vandalism charge, and helped organize an anti-Muslim rally in New York City that turned violent. On Jan. 6, he was caught on camera storming the Capitol with a baseball bat and a riot shield, which prosecutors said he used to attack police officers.
• In May, Zachary Alam was arrested for breaking into a house in Virginia and stealing a tablet computer and a diamond necklace. On Jan. 6, he was among the first to enter the Capitol building from its west lawn and hurled items at police officers from a balcony. At his sentencing hearing, he was unrepentant: “Sometimes you have to break the rules to do what’s right.” He had previous convictions for auto theft and driving under the influence.
• Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right Proud Boys, scuffled with protesters at a news conference and was briefly detained on assault charges, a month after Mr. Trump freed him from a 22-year prison sentence. Mr. Tarrio was one of the leaders behind the Jan. 6 attack, but he was not in Washington on the day of the riot. He had been kicked out of the city after vandalizing a Black church after an earlier pro-Trump rally.

“An additional eight Jan. 6 rioters were out of prison when Mr. Trump pardoned them and have since been charged with new crimes:”

• On March 25, a judge sentenced Daniel Tocci to four years in prison for possession of more than 110,000 child pornography images. During the Jan. 6 riot, he joined the mob as it broke into the Capitol and destroyed and took government property.
• On March 1, Bryan Betancur grabbed a woman’s hair on the Washington Metro, leading to a charge of assault and battery. At least two women have also accused him of stalking. He was already on probation for a burglary conviction when he stormed the Capitol and helped rioters circulate furniture that most likely was used as weapons.
• In October, Christopher Moynihan threatened to kill Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, and pleaded guilty to a harassment charge over the incident. On Jan. 6, he was among the first rioters to breach police barricades and eventually broke into the Senate chamber.
• Robert Packer was arrested in September after his dogs attacked people, putting four in the hospital. He previously had a long criminal record that included theft and drunken driving, and during the Jan. 6 riot, he wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt.
• John Andries violated a legal order requested by the mother of his child by repeatedly following and confronting her, leading to a sentence in June of 60 days in jail and three years of unsupervised probation. On Jan. 6, he entered the Capitol through a broken window and pushed police officers once inside.
• Brent Holdridge was arrested in May for stealing tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of industrial copper wire. On Jan. 6, he was scheduled to be in jail on separate drug-related charges, but he skipped his booking and joined the mob as it breached the Capitol.
• Jonathan Munafo was rearrested last year after he allegedly fled federal supervision imposed for dozens of menacing phone calls, including one in which he threatened to “cut the throat” of a 911 dispatcher. During the riots, he punched a police officer twice, stole his riot shield and used a wooden flagpole to try to break a window.
• Days after he was pardoned, Matthew Huttle is said to have resisted arrest during a traffic stop, and a sheriff’s deputy shot and killed him. The police said he had a gun. On Jan. 6, he helped take over the Capitol and joined rioters in chanting, “Whose house? Our house.”

“This list does not include at least 27 rioters who committed other crimes before they received their pardons. That group includes one woman who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing someone while driving drunk and a man who livestreamed a bomb threat while driving around Barack Obama’s neighborhood in Washington.”

George Will: “What can be done about grotesque use of the pardon power that, in Prakash’s understatement, ‘seems inconsistent with the general structure of checks and balances’? Not much . . . Presidents hoard power, so any president probably would oppose constitutional reforms, such as establishing an independent Clemency Commission, or empowering the Senate or House to disapprove of presidential clemencies. So, the remedy for tawdry pardoning is not this or that institutional gambit. The only feasible solution is the election of presidents who are not louts.” The January 6 pardons undermined the law, and they undermined public order. They were an affront to police officers everywhere. “Mr. Trump has a constitutional right to pardon whom he chooses. The rest of us have a right to hold him and his enablers responsible for their actions.”  May God give American voters the courage to hold them accountable.

See Protect Democracy, “The Presidential Pardon Power Explained” (18 March 2024); George Will in the Washington Post (10 April 2026); and the editorial in the New York Times (5 April 2026).