I have generally supported presidential pardons in the past because they serve as an expression of the public’s desire to extend grace. However, I have strong reservations about how President Donald Trump has exercised his pardon power.
He has pardoned wealthy donors, connected business associates and others who appear to be intimately associated with his private affairs. Moreover, Trump’s blanket pardon of 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters still leaves me dismayed.
Most recently, Trump pardoned former Honduran president and convicted drug smuggler Juan Orlando Hernández. That might have been an acceptable pardon except for the fact that Trump is currently threatening war on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro for the same reason.
There is just no consistency in Trump’s thinking. Pardon Policy Initiative advocate Regan Huston supports my concerns as she explains, “Pardoning friends and allies, while overlooking others, can undermine public confidence in the pardon power and diminish its perceived legitimacy.”
To safeguard the integrity of the pardon power, I believe it is now time for Congress to establish a federal pardon board to restore confidence in this damaged process.
Andrew L. Norton, Mesquite
Freeing worst of the worst
Re: “Cuellar Pardon Erodes Justice — Americans are losing faith in a pillar of democracy, and Trump is driving it,” Tuesday editorial.
While this editorial is spot on regarding the erosion of justice, as President Donald Trump pardons criminals on a wholesale basis, no one should be surprised at the corruption of the American justice system. When you have a convicted felon elected to serve as president of the United States, what did the American public expect?
Trump has not yet served one full year of his second presidency, and he may yet empty the prisons of the worst of the worst by the time he finishes his term or is finally impeached.
Tony Torres, Garland
One president pardoned son
The Constitution gives the president of the United States pardon power. Presidents use it hundreds of times. They pardon all kinds of miscreants. One president even pardoned his son for past and future crimes.
Did that erode justice? What is so onerous about U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar’s pardon? A wild guess is that Cuellar is a Democrat who supported Donald Trump. It seems that The Dallas Morning News selecting Trump’s pardon of Cuellar as the one eroding justice is an example of journalism tinted with political partisan hyperbole.
Don Skaggs, Garland
Put a price on pardons
Donald Trump and family could really simplify this pardon business if they would just operate a website with pardon prices clearly listed, based on severity of crime and political affiliation of the purchaser.
Alan Heuser, Plano
Who condones this?
Fact: President Donald Trump pardons several of the world’s worst convicted drug traffickers, while he blows up outboard motorboats containing still undetermined cargo and their human occupants (requiring a “double-tap” to “kill them all” on one boat).
Just one example would be the former president of Honduras who graced this country with 400 tons of cocaine as well as illegal arms.
We continue to ask whether these pardons are condoned by MAGAs and Republicans, or are they just afraid of, cowed by or beholden to this president? Or all three?
Rodney Pirtle, Dallas
Speak up, Sen. Cornyn
Re: “Condemn pardon abuse,” by Marvin Noble, Dec. 4 Letters.
Noble wonders why Sen. John Cornyn doesn’t speak up about President Donald Trump’s abuse of pardons. Me, too.
Perhaps Cornyn will find his voice if he also finds his backbone to stand up and defend any of the authorities that Article I grants to senators but not presidents: the power of the purse including levying taxes/tariffs, the power to declare war and the power to ensure a competent Cabinet with fidelity to the Constitution through advice and consent.
It’s not just, as he continually reminds us, that he supports Trump 99%. It’s that he has ceded all his judgment and the powers we elected him to honor.
Perhaps the MAGA hat he’s wearing these days is too tight to allow adequate blood flow to his brain. He may try to pivot if he survives his primary challenge, but Texas voters should remember.
Bill Luthans, Dallas
Pardon pride blatant
The latest batch of presidential pardons has left me speechless. Not because of the abuse of power itself, but because this administration is openly proud of it. The Department of Justice now says the quiet part aloud.
Ed Martin, Donald Trump’s U.S. pardon attorney, had a comment that pretty much sums up how blatantly they flaunt the law. “No MAGA left behind,” Martin proudly proclaimed, as the fake electors, who shamelessly lied about their states’ voting results, received their pardons.
Meanwhile, many of those who were involved in investigating Trump in the past have either been indicted or fired.
The message is chillingly clear. If you support Trump, you can live under a different set of laws than the rest of us. When did open duplicity become acceptable to the American people? To paraphrase a recent Jon Stewart rant, “When it comes to the law, they don’t give a damn that you know they don’t give a damn.”
Nora Hamill, Lewisville
Condemn travesty of justice
Arguably, there is no presidential power and prerogative that Donald Trump likes more than the power to pardon. This power is constitutionally mandated, and it’s unrivaled in the unfettered power it grants the president.
Trump loves nothing more than wielding power that no one, not Congress, and not the courts, can review or overturn.
Last month, Trump issued a sweeping pardon to key figures allegedly involved in the plan to arrange an alternate slate of electors and expose voting fraud during the 2020 election. The pardon exclaimed that “This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 presidential election and continues the process of national reconciliation.”
Perhaps no one can stop the president from his wrongheaded use of the pardon power, yet such an egregious travesty of justice must be called out and condemned. This is not what the framers of the Constitution envisioned when they granted the president the power to pardon, but, then again, perhaps, they never envisioned a president quite like Trump either.
Ken Derow, Swarthmore, Pa.
President in confusing role
I am a bit confused about President Donald Trump’s many pardons and the role he is playing in each. First, why would Trump encourage a pardon for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he has not yet been convicted?
And, now he has pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of drug trafficking in the U.S. and was serving a 45-year sentence. And yet he believes it is perfectly OK to destroy boats in the Caribbean suspected of bringing drugs into the U.S. with absolutely no clear evidence of this happening?
Nancy Scholberg, East Dallas
Trump beats Clinton’s low bar
On his last day in office known derisively as “Pardongate,” former President Bill Clinton pardoned 140 scoundrels (nearly a third of the 450 people he pardoned over his two terms in office). Among the criminals he pardoned were financial swindler Marc Rich and cocaine cartel money launderer Harvey Weinig.
In so doing, Clinton set the low bar for egregious presidential pardons and commutations until Oct. 17 when President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of perhaps America’s creepiest con artist, disgraced congressman George Santos.
Since then Trump pardoned his chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorney Sydney Powell and chief confidant Rudy Giuliani, who were all involved in his attempt to cast doubt on the November 2020 presidential election result.
Trump also has pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year federal prison sentence for trafficking an estimated 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
Drug officials as well as several Republican members of Congress were dumbfounded that Trump pardoned a convicted drug trafficker.
Trump has also shamelessly pardoned tax evaders and fraudsters such as Paul Walczak, Conrad Black and Charles Kushner who scammed clients, blackmailed rivals, avoided taxes or sought to bribe politicians.
Trump nonchalantly undermines his claim to be a law-and-order president when he grants pardons and commutations to such rich unrepentant criminals and political cronies. It is unconscionable that he chose Kushner to be our ambassador to France.
George Orwell had it right: Some people are definitely more equal than others, especially if they are wealthy and have friends in high places.
George W. Aldridge, Arlington