Hawthorn Hill Journal by Richard deRosa

Pardon Me

Pardon me, but is anyone out there as baffled by this pardon thing as I am? Cornucopias normally spew edible things like fruits, flowers or nuts. Since when are clearly defined presidential powers misconstrued as pardon cornucopias? Put mildly, things have gotten a bit out of hand.

I can think of many thoughts and actions on my part that might just qualify as pardonable gestures, if not sins. That is, if I believed in sins, which I do not. Which is not to suggest that the difference between good and evil, or right and wrong, is not easily discernible. Most reasonable people know the difference no matter how arrived at.

What many of the founders of this nation worried about has come to pass; a president acting as if he were a king. Aside from the not-so-Supreme Court’s tortured decision to grant a president virtually unlimited immunity, the facts on the ground suggest that recent presidents, especially the last one and the one we are now saddled with, have increasingly seen fit to blatantly disregard what the Constitution actually permits: “he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except Cases of Impeachment.” (Art. II, Sec. 2).

How many of the thousands pardoned are guilty of an offense against the United States? Quite a few, actually, but not thousands. And then there is the issue of parceling out pardons for friends and family. As is also the case with our legal system, the wealthy and well connected have a far better chance of gaming the system. We have had to endure two impeachments of late and we know where they have led us. Not only nowhere, but into realms of sycophancy and cult-like behavior disturbing enough to raise the hackles of anyone with a modicum of commitment to what used to be admired in this country: virtue. Being virtuous, in the traditional sense of the word, seems to have lost its appeal.

One of the few bi-partisan gestures of late has been the issuance of pardons by two presidents for reasons completely at odds with the original intention of the pardon itself. I suspect when the founders gathered in Philadelphia, they figured a pardon could be a good thing if used well. Good luck with that. Some believed that the power of granting pardons should reside with the legislative body. Others rightly feared turning over such decisions to what is essentially a mob, one afflicted with so many passionate and seemingly irreconcilable differences that they could never be trusted with such a high-minded task. Better to leave it to a president who, presumably, would judge each case on its merits, all the while exercising self-control and a calm adherence to reasoned judgement. Good luck with that.

Anyone who has kept up with the torrent of pardons, executive orders and preposterous notions espoused, unflinchingly, by people who seem not to care a whit about that thing we call the Constitution, needs no summary of events from me. Clearly, the current occupant of the White House is the more egregious offender. But the former occupant, especially in his final days, was equally guilty of winking his way around the actual criteria for granting a pardon or a reprieve. I am aware of the rationale: worry about retribution, lawsuits, etc. All fine and good. But that document we claim to abide by makes clear upon what grounds a pardon is permissible. Language, at best, is always shrouded in ambiguity. The way around that ambiguity, at least in this case, is for all of us, no matter our ideology, to agree on some baseline readings of the documents that define our democracy.

I am, not opposed to the granting of pardons—once in a while, for constitutionally-defensible reasons. However, this pickle we are in now needs some attention, and fast. The framers, however prescient the best among them might have been, could never have envisioned the pickle we now find ourselves in. How could they?

We need a fix consistent with the country we live in today. It would be nice to have bipartisan agreement on the wording of a constitutional amendment that limits a president’s pardon powers and that sets in stone a process that must be adhered to for the granting of any pardon. The Justice Department does have a process in place that appears to have fallen into dormancy. The evidence is abundant that this is too much power for one person to wield. Obviously, those who feared misuse of this power by one man were prescient.

To anyone I might have offended, I hope unwittingly, please: Pardon me.

Dick deRosa’s Hawthorn Hill essays have appeared in “The Freeman’s Journal” since 1998. A collection, “Hawthorn Hill Journal: Selected Essays,” was published in 2012. He is a retired English teacher.