‘Tis the season for granting pardons, fa-la-la-la-la. And a few of them granted recently are not making people very merry or bright.
President Joe Biden has been busy this holiday season bestowing gifts of clemency as is his Constitutional right to. But just because he can does not mean he should — not without regard to the person or persons the pardoned people hurt.
Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution states, “... The President shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”
A presidential pardon effectively erases a person’s punishment and guilt stemming from a federal offense. Amnesties are like pardons, but generally apply to a group of people who may not have applied for a pardon. Commutation refers to instances where the president uses their executive power to reduce a sentence. The president may also remit a fine or order to pay restitution.
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Finally, a reprieve pauses a criminal sentence. A reprieve allows the individual to prepare an appeal for their case. Presidents often issue reprieves in situations where an individual is facing the death penalty.
On Dec. 2, Biden gave his son Hunter Biden a “full and unconditional pardon” for not only his federal firearms and tax convictions, but also for any other “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in” over the past 10 years.
Just 12 days later, Biden issued 39 more presidential pardons and commuted the sentences of 1,499 people who had been released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic.
One of those commutations was for Rita Crundwell, the former comptroller and treasurer for the city of Dixon, Illinois. Crundwell pleaded guilty in 2012 to embezzling $53.7 million from her city over the course of 22 years.
Crundwell was sentenced to almost 20 years in prison, nearly the maximum, and was moved to house arrest during the pandemic. She was supposed to be on house arrest until 2028, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Illinois lawmakers are rightly furious with Biden for granting Crundwell clemency.
“When I heard the news, I was completely shocked in disbelief,” current Dixon city manager Danny Langloss told CNN: “I was outraged and felt a complete sense of betrayal from the federal justice system, the White House and the president.”
Langloss, who said he doesn’t affiliate with a political party, was the police chief when Crundwell’s fraud was uncovered. He said he believes “justice wasn’t served here.”
“I don’t like the idea … that with several more years of her sentence to complete, she gets to walk free in the community that she betrayed and stole from,” he said.
Crundwell betrayed the very public trust that she was enshrined to keep. Perhaps Langloss said it best when he questioned why Biden would do so “at a time when the federal government is the least trusted institution in the country.”
Polling shows that some presidential pardons are politically unpopular. A recent AP-NORC poll showed that only about two in 10 Americans approve of Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter.
Americans are equally suspicious of the potential pardons that President-elect Donald Trump says he might grant to those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
More than 1,000 people have been charged with actions related to Jan. 6. At least 547 have been charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers or employees.
Trump told NBC News’ Kristen Welker that he would consider granting pardons to those convicted during the riot: “I’m going to look at everything. I’m going to look at individual cases, but I’m going to be acting very quickly.” He said he would begin the review on his first day in office.
Trump also said there would be some exceptions to his pardons for those who are “radical” or “crazy” — but that he generally believes the criminally charged rioters have “suffered long and hard.”
A Monmouth University poll found that a majority of Americans wouldn’t support Trump granting pardons to Jan. 6 rioters. Sixty-one percent said they would disapprove, compared to only 34% who said they would support it. An additional 5% said they weren’t sure.
Since it would take a Constitutional amendment to change the scope of presidential pardon powers, reforms are unlikely to happen. Public opinion might be the only restraint on a president’s exercise of this authority.
Public dislike of some pardons can also be expressed electorally, as demonstrated back in 1976. Then-President Gerald Ford’s electoral defeat in his bid for a full term was likely in large part because he pardoned his disgraced predecessor, President Richard Nixon, for “all offenses against the United States.”
Biden is a lame duck and Trump will be one immediately upon taking office. Biden certainly does not seem to care about tarnishing his reputation. And if the past is prologue, Trump is unlikely to be moved by the vox populi.
So the American people are left holding the unpopular holiday gift bag of a lack of accountability. Fa-la-la-la-la.
