Is bipartisan reform of the clemency process likely?

As Cabinet nominees make appearances before relevant Senate committees for their confirmation hearings, the questioning is as frequently presented to score partisan political points as it is to determine the qualifications for an office.

Such is the case for President Trump's attorney general pick, Pam Bondi. Headlines on her recent appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee reflect a determination to make the president’s pardon power a window into re-hashing the events of Jan. 6.

Specifically, Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) questioning utilized the imagery of the brave Capitol police officers to back Bondi into a precarious corner. He asked, “Do you believe that the Jan. 6 rioters, who were convicted of violent assaults on police officers, should be pardoned?” Bondi refused to take the bait, clarifying first that pardons are a uniquely presidential power. But, she added, if asked, she would give advice on a case-by-case basis, as she has done throughout her impressive career as a prosecutor.

Only later, under questioning from Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), did Bondi reframe the narrative, offering that she found the recent near-blanket commutations of federal death sentences by Joe Biden “abhorrent." She is not alone.

Among the unique constitutional powers that are preserved solely for the president, Article II bestows the power “…to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment.” Biden invoked that authority on Dec. 23, when he delivered an early Christmas present to 37 out of 40 federal death row convicts by commuting their sentences to life in prison.

Among those in the near-blanket commutation is Kaboni Savage. Before I served four terms in Congress, I served as the U.S. Attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania as well as the elected district attorney for Delaware County. I made decisions to seek death sentences for numerous defendants, and never was it done lightly. I balanced my Christian beliefs about forgiveness against my duties of the office, and acted as I believed I was obligated.

There were times when this duty caused me to struggle, as it would any rational individual. However, when it came to Kaboni Savage, there was and remains no doubt.

Still unrepentant to this day, Savage led a violent drug gang in Eastern Pennsylvania that used murder and intimidation to build a dominating criminal enterprise. Ultimately convicted of 12 murders, Savage carried out a campaign of violence and fear that affected everyone in our area.

He ordered the firebombing of the home of a federal witness. That attack resulted in six deaths, including four young children. On tapes of phone calls from prison, he was recorded joking that the witness should pour barbecue sauce on the bodies of the family members who had been burned in the flames.

Savage is pure evil. Interestingly, Durbin didn’t feel the need to mention Savage's name while he cleverly threw his brush-back pitch about prospective presidential pardons at Bondi’s chin.

Perhaps we ought not be surprised that the president’s pardon power is given the most scrutiny during presidential transitions. This is the period when the power is most frequently exercised. In some ways, it’s almost a rite of passage, with precedents having been set by some widely admired Americans. As president, George Washington mounted his horse and led a government militia to western Pennsylvania to put down an insurrection of armed anti-tax protests in the Whiskey Rebellion. Later, he used his powers to grant amnesty to the lot of them.

Thomas Jefferson railed against the Sedition Acts of the early 1800s, which he believed stifled political opposition, and upon gaining the presidency, granted pardons to any who had been convicted under those laws.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln granted full pardons to Confederates who would take an oath of allegiance to the United States.

I remember Gerald Ford prospectively pardoning Richard Nixon. He paid a political price, but he helped our nation heal.

Bill Clinton pardoned fugitive tax-evader Marc Rich during his last hours in office. This appeared quite sordid when it was discovered that Rich’s former wife had donated more than a half a million dollars to the Clinton Library and to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign in New York.

As a former prosecutor, I submit there is an earnest role for presidential pardons. In fact, there is an Office of the Pardon Attorney within the Department of Justice that sifts through thousands of petitions to identify and investigate meritorious appeals for pardon or clemency consideration that might be recommended to the president. Consistent factors like acceptance of responsibility, rehabilitative conduct after conviction, non-violence and the passage of time enhance a petitioner's case.

Barack Obama granted clemency to more than 1,750 non-violent drug offenders. A second route is through direct appeal to the president, usually through the efforts of high-powered insiders who can get the president’s ear. In actuality, those are far fewer, though Trump with Michael Flynn and Joe Biden with his son Hunter are examples where each has acted unilaterally.

There is something unnerving about the idea of blanket pardons and commutations for Jan. 6 activists. I recognize Trump has an unfettered right to grant them, but Americans are still smarting from that day. I do not agree with Joe Biden’s commutation of federally convicted murderers, but I recognize he acted in his constitutional capacity and he explained why he made that choice. It’s his prerogative.

In an incisive dialogue with Bondi, Coons suggested that there might be common ground with Congress and the attorney general to institutionalize reforms to the clemency process that could be recommended to the president. It’s not clear why a president would welcome any guardrails, but perhaps the reformation of this process could both benefit the American people and allow for a showing of bipartisan agreement at the outset of this new presidency.

Former Rep. Pat Meehan (R-Pa.) served as the former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, former district attorney of Delaware County, and currently runs Harvey Run Strategies.

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