The real embarrassment is how little effort there's been to limit/reform the pardon system since then.

Pardons have valid uses, but it's wild that a single person can unilaterally pardon donators, family members, former presidents, etc, without needing so much as a simple majority confirmation vote in the House or Senate.

The questionable pardons that we've seen over the last few years (and the Nixon pardon) are just the tip of iceberg in terms of how badly they could be abused.

I'd imagine it won't be long until we see a president issue a preemptive pardon to themself at the end of their term, because there's nothing in the constitution that says they can't.

Isn't that the whole point of all these pardon things? To reduce incentives to usurp power to avoid responsibility by providing less destructive for the political system ways to avoid responsibility.

Or concretely, would the Israeli wars end sooner if Netanyahu was pardoned of all crimes? Would Kim Jong Un consider giving up his position if he could be pardoned, or at least credibly believe that he could live a life in luxurious exile? I don’t know the answer to either of those questions, but I do think letting some people get away with crimes with witness immunity can make it much more difficult for criminals to organize as the optimum move is to defect before anyone else does. Which is why I think elite blackmail focuses on unforgivable deeds.

> Would Kim Jong Un consider giving up his position if he could be pardoned, or at least credibly believe that he could live a life in luxurious exile?

The kind of despot that sends assassins against people in exile is unlikely to choose it themselves.

Hense the credible belief. The Russians did manage to step down from violence so it is possible.

May want to check Russian agression for years. They did not stepped down much.

Not Russia in general but their leadership succession

They're a release valve for "the system fucked up and permitted an injustice".

Avoiding responsibility isn't the goal, and shouldn't be possible.

> without needing so much as a simple majority confirmation vote in the House or Senate

This is intentional. Pardons are part of the checks and balances against the legislative branch.

Congress has tools at their disposal, like impeachment, to punish a sitting president if they want to.

Not sure if they can void an improper pardon, but it would nice if the threat of impeachment was more meaningful of a deterrent.

In my country pardons very rarely happen because politicians would be massacred in the press for it.

It is political suicide- one of the perks of having 20 different parties.

It’s in the Constitution. There isn’t that much anyone can do.

Haven't people 'done' something about the original wording about 27 times now?

The pardon power is.

Presidential immunity for, say, selling a pardon is very new.

Hmm. I feel like it isn’t over the history of the US and there was a period where US governance tended toward an ideal but the last 50 years have reverted to the norm. E.g Oliver North

So exactly when was that? Before 50 years ago, “Separate but Equal” was the law of the land as decided by the Supreme Court, laws against interracial marriage and laws against “sodomy” (homosexuality) were also upheld by the Supreme Court.

There is absolutely no point in US history that the US was “ideal”.

My still living parents grew up in the segregated south.

So perhaps the US was always an unjust shithole but I prefer to think the direction it was going was positive. It certainly isn’t positive now.

> It’s in the Constitution. There isn’t that much anyone can do.

We have modified the constitution before. It is not easy, sure. But, presidential pardons are being abused so thoroughly that it does warrant people making the effort to change things.

Interestingly, Ford received a Kennedy Award for pardoning Nixon.

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/22/us/ford-wins-kennedy-awar...