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Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., called for an end to the presidential pardon through a post on X on Monday.
“I’ve been in support of getting rid of a presidential pardon for either party. I don’t think it makes sense in the modern world. And we just saw why it’s a problem last week,” Slotkin said.
“Last week, Donald Trump pardoned the CEO of a cryptocurrency company called Binance. This CEO had invested heavily in President Trump’s family crypto venture. I didn’t like it when Democrats did it, I don’t like it when Republicans do it,” Slotkin said.
While many Democrats in the House of Representatives shared Slotkin’s concerns about the pardon’s use, members of the Judiciary Committee were split over whether lawmakers should eliminate the power outright.
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President Donald Trump’s pardoning of Changpeng Zhao, a tech billionaire who had been convicted of facilitating money laundering, is just the most recent controversy over the pardon power. Trump’s pardons for participants in the Jan. 6 riots — coupled with former President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardoning of his own family — have invited questions about its proper use.
In light of Trump’s record on the power, Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said he agreed with Slotkin.
“I one thousand percent agree with her,” Lieu said. “It’s been abused.”
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Other members said they had reservations about throwing it out completely.
“In the past we have had presidents that have used pardons with a lot of thoughtfulness,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., said. “We are now in an abnormal situation with a very rogue president who is not accountable to the American people or to Congress.”
“I’m not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. I do think it is a [power] that should be reserved because it’s been used actually with a lot of sincerity and thought. We should be focusing on getting rid of this rogue president rather than doing away with systems that have worked in the past.”
Kamlager-Dove pointed to President Joe Biden’s commutation of Native American advocate Leonard Peltier’s sentence as one such example. He had been sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the murder of a pair of FBI agents in 1975 but was released from prison earlier this year.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, echoed Kamlager-Dove’s thoughts.
“I certainly think we need to analyze the systemic abuses that have been taking place. At the same time — that we maintain the power of clemency and mercy that has traditionally reposed in the executive branch,” Raskin said.
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While she wouldn’t support removing the presidential pardons, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., another member of the Judiciary Committee, would support limiting the power in some way. She acknowledged that any change to it would require a constitutional amendment — a long-shot reform that would require supermajority agreement among lawmakers.
“In my mind, it’s about a narrow use,” Jayapal said. “It has to be much more tapered, and I’m not sure if you can make it that tapered — I would rather that than get rid of it.”
Jayapal noted the country has adopted several constitutional amendments in the past.
When asked if presidential powers still served a purpose, Lieu said he doesn’t know exactly, but believes its use has drifted from its original design.
“Definitely not the role it’s playing now where Donald Trump is pardoning hardened criminals and his friends and allies — that’s not the framers’ vision of the pardon provision,” Lieu said.
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