Never before had a president used his constitutional clemency powers to free or forgive so many people who could be useful to his future political efforts. A Washington Post review of Trump’s 238 clemency orders found that dozens of recipients, including Arpaio, have gone on to plug his 2024 candidacy through social media and national interviews, contribute money to his front-running bid for the Republican nomination or disseminate his false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election.
Ghost archive link: https://ghostarchive.org/archive/IHZj1
There have been a lot of good relevant lawsuits brought against Trump recently, is there any legal stipulation that works against this type of bribery?
Donating to a political campaign in a straightforward exchange for political favors?
The Article II Section 2 constitutional power to pardon is almost entirely unrestricted or limited. The only thing stopping a president from gaining from the pardon (financially, politically, or otherwise) is social pressure. The only limit is that the President cannot use their pardon for impeachment.
Sounds like it’s time for that to change.
It would take an amendment. We haven’t amended the constitution in quite a while and it’s unlikely to happen to limit executive power with a dysfunctional legislature
Dag, alright.
But checks and balances!?!?!!1
Bribery, or “lobbying”, is legal so I doubt it.