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A pardon for a price? How Donald Trump has reimagined presidential clemency (www.aljazeera.com)

submitted 3 days ago by HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to c/news@lemmy.world

28 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Cryptocurrency billionaires. Disgraced politicians. Reality TV stars. And hundreds of political allies.

Since taking office for a second term, United States President Donald Trump has issued more than 1,840 acts of clemency to a range of personalities.

Presidents have long stirred controversy in their choices of people to pardon. But experts argue that the way Trump has exercised his clemency power violates rules and norms in place for more than a century.

Now, they warn that pardons and commutations have become transactional, with Trump using them to reward those loyal to his agenda.

Some beneficiaries have been supporters of his "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement, including the hundreds of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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[-] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 47 points 3 days ago

He’s demonstrated that pardoning the wrong people doesn’t carry a political penalty, as was imagined in the past to be the case.

Of course, he also proved that being a felon doesn’t prevent one from being elected president, and being a documented paedophile doesn’t push approval ratings below 30%, because they’ll just stop measuring.

[-] theolodis@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

I think if you had a normal president, like one that doesn't do bad things on a daily basis, people would absolutely go crazy for pardoning the wrong people. But now everything is a distraction for everything else, and nobody knows where to look anymore, so nobody is outraged anymore out of confusion.

[-] 13igTyme@piefed.social 45 points 3 days ago

Selling pardons? You mean the same thing he did during his last term? The masses have the memory of a goldfish.

[-] real_squids@sopuli.xyz 6 points 2 days ago

I swear to god some people were in a coma from 2016

[-] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 26 points 3 days ago

Remember when the church used to sell "indulgences" for cash as pardons for sins? What trump is doing is the modern day version of it and its just as disgusting.

[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's definitely worse. Vague threats of "God's wrath" aren't real. Federal prison is real. And he's setting criminals free from it

[-] captain_oni@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 days ago

Oh, I've got an idea:

Why not write a formal protest?

You can nail it to his door.

[-] santa@sh.itjust.works 27 points 3 days ago

Pardon power needs to go.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago

I'd argue the biggest problem with the pardon power is that it isn't used enough.

Enormous numbers of people have been sentenced wrongly, sadistically, or for purely political reasons. These folks rarely get clemency of any sort. Obama and Biden were incredibly stingy in who they released. Modern liberal governors are even worse.

It is galling to live in a hyper-carceral state and watch rich assholes slip through the cracks. But biggest the problem is the obscene number of people in prison to begin with.

[-] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

The solution should be justice reform, not giving politicians God mode and then chiding them if they use it wrong.

[-] Formfiller@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

The entire system needs to go

[-] Natanael@infosec.pub 2 points 2 days ago

Enforce 14A3 and declare the second term invalid and null and void. That will nullify all the pardons too

[-] santa@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Can you please explain this more or point out some sources that do so?

[-] Natanael@infosec.pub 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/what-the-supreme-court-got-wrong-in-the-trump-section-3-case

SCOTUS didn't even rule on if he's disqualified.

https://reason.com/volokh/2025/05/20/judge-rules-removal-of-u-s-institute-of-peace-usip-directors-was-illegal/

It's not the same type of case, but it's relevant to show total legal nullification and total reversal is legally supported. It can be extended to the entire second term, erasing every change he made.

[T]he purported removal of Ambassador George Moose as acting president of the Institute by a resolution adopted by less than a majority of the duly appointed Board of Directors of USIP was invalid, and therefore null, void, and without legal effect ….

[-] D_C@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago

The obese child rapist is violating rules and norms that are accepted? No way, what a shocker.

This fat cunt has never felt a consequence for his thousands and thousands of crimes in his entire life...and yet americans voted, or enabled, him to be 'president' twice. Then wonder why he's breaking more rules and committing more crimes.
Jesus fucking Christ!

[-] Snapz@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

This article works WAY too hard to frame this as a maybe. He is without a doubt abusing this system for cash, degrading public trust in justice, re-victimizing victims and letting emboldened Donald back to prey on the public.

[-] plateee@piefed.social 16 points 3 days ago

But experts argue that the way Trump has exercised his clemency power violates rules and norms in place for more than a century.

Are those rules and norms that have consequences beyond "shame on you"? No? Then they're effectively a gentleman's agreement that can be ignored.

Too much of our government existed with just accepted norms with the hope and understanding someone wouldn't come in and set fire to the whole thing just to watch it burn.

[-] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 3 points 2 days ago

Lol right? Everywhere we look, there's volumes of "rules and norms" that would see us insta-fired and jailed if violated. Plenty of actions we could take would put us at the mercy of countless authorities and perhaps rightly ruin our lives.

But gee if you go high enough, the consequences are apparently just:

"Egad! Oh dear, how uncouth! Somebody should do something! Sir! We unfortunately feel forced to inform you that we find this behavior most distasteful! Excuse me sir are you listening? We disapprove, I say! We wag our fingers, sir!"

[-] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Biden was at over 4K clemency/pardons, Trump you gotta up those numbers, those are rookie numbers

(this isn't new, this has been a problem for many years, I first noticed this with Bill Clinton but it may be even older than that)

[-] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago

I looked it up and there was a good rationale based on fairness behind Biden's pardons. Most of Biden's pardons also weren't really pardons, but commutations of sentences: "Context: The thousands pardoned on Friday were "serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today," Biden's statement said." https://www.axios.com/2025/01/17/biden-presidential-pardons-clemency-record Which seems fair and also needed to me. Imagine having 10 years left to serve of your 20 years sentence, while new convicts only receive max 5 years for the same crime.

What Biden did with pardons was completely different from what Trump is doing with them.

[-] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago

Re commutations vs pardons, the same is true with Trump. Thousands more commutations than pardons.

Re "fairness", do you think this pardon was fair?

"the owner of a Detroit-area Medicare billing company who orchestrated a $26 million Medicare fraud."

"Cuyahoga County commissioner, served more than a decade in prison on corruption charges"

...and so on.

It's not "completely different", it's the same old shit, just like when Bush or Trump or Clinton did the exact same thing

But you WANT him to be different... so here we are, in your own fantasy land. So nice here. Oblivion. Peace

[-] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

And Trump does the following: "President Donald Trump signed off on several eyebrow-raising pardons this week, including a man whose daughter donated millions to his PAC and a convicted fraudster he had already freed from prison for a different fraud scheme during his first term"

Trump hands out pardons after blatant corruption & at the start of people's sentences. Biden did not do that. That you want to portray Biden to be as bad as Trump, shows that apparently your fairness compass is very broken.

And that person who got pardoned after already serving 10 years of his prison sentence ... 10 years is already a freaking long time for non violent crime, which also didn't ruin anyone else's lives. Sentences have to follow a gradiant along the severity of the crime, if not you end up with a broken system (like the USA one). Prison should be temporary, a chance for correction and rehabilitation, where the person one day gets released with another chance at living a quiet honest life. That you want that man to die in prison ... Says a lot about you again.

[-] Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Still the same, pardons and commutations for wealthy thieves abound with Presidents for decades.

That's what makes Trump's blatant corruption possible, you see. Years of blatant corruption leads to even more blatant corruption.

Ten years is not long enough for a corrupt politician stealing millions of dollars. You get more time from robbing a bank. What is worse? I believe stealing from your constituents is worse than stealing from a wealthy bank, don't you??

But you go ahead and stand up for a 50-year politician who has sent many more non-violent people to prison for much longer (see his stance on "Drug War" and much more over the decades).

That says even more about you, who will you defend next??? Gross.

People like you make people like Trump inevitable.

[-] RunawayFixer@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

So your idea of justice is to heavily sentence people for actions that are not related to the crime that they are being sentenced for. That's not justice, that's called vengeance.

And yes, someone defrauding the government should be sentenced less severely than someone who does a violent robbery. Violent robberies can get people killed and even if noone dies or gets wounded, the victims will still be traumatized. None of that can happen with white collar crime against a big organisation. That this difference isn't obvious to you, should imo be a wake up call for yourself that you need to calm down and take some time to rethink some of the things that you belief.

[-] alpha1beta@piefed.social 10 points 3 days ago

Not to mention pardoning the J6 insurrections and anyone who committes the same crimes as him to normalize political violence and corruption.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

That’s a fancy way to say “corruption”. Abuse of pardon power is impeachable.

[-] Formfiller@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

This man needs to face a treason trial

[-] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I was to understand that the people that can afford his bribes generally aren't locked up to begin with

this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026

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