Blog/2025-09-29/Open Pardons

The Presidential Pardon is not nearly as controversial as it should be. The colony ecology of factions inevitably leads to the frontiers being optimized to. For the Presidential Pardon that means that in time, all leaders running for President will tacitly promise radical faction the pardon to allow them to operate unchecked.

In the past, norms did not permit unchecked use of this power, though it was used in this capacity. In my lifetime, Scooter Libby acted as President George W. Bush's radical arm - attacking political opponents by burning the covert identity of Valerie Plame. President Bush responded to his conviction by commuting his sentence in a typical display of the radical-moderate tag team.

The use of the pardon is not limited to Republican Presidents. Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother, and Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter. But the crucial thing here is that everyone was pardoning people in their sphere of influence: friends and family. So either you had to be related to them one way or another or you got a pardon for general purpose reasons. But what was the case was that a normal person like me didn't have access to pardons.

That is one thing that has changed with President Trump. Presidential pardons are clearly up for sale. Many argue that this is a bad thing but it's hard for me to imagine that the status quo is better. In any event, nepotistic pardons are inferior to open pardons that are available to all irrespective of how closely they are related to the President. If we are to have pardons, having them only be available to those who the President knows sets up this courtier-structure where people have to curry favour with him until he is willing to give them amnesty for what they've done. It also encourages the radical-moderate tag team since the moderate can give the radical explicit cover that no one else is going to get.

Especially, the energy starts to rise in politics. The winner can pardon his own team, but to win he needs to exercise some amount of power through his radical section. Opponents are forced by the same calculus to also increase their investment because you'll lose if you don't play but also if you start playing it becomes more important to win. In fact, once you start playing the radical game, losing becomes very dangerous. You're on the hook for prison! And particularly, you can commit crimes to help the incumbent be elected again and be immediately forgiven while he's still in his term.

But if anyone can pay to get a pardon including opponents, reducing the energy in the system is simply a matter of the legislature setting the price sufficiently high. But I'll admit the truth: I think the Presidential pardon is a bad thing. If it must exist, I would rather it be shown to be the terribly corrupt thing it clearly is: permitting in-group criminality while punishing out-groups and people who are not sufficiently connected to get pardons. It makes a farce of the notion that all are equal before the law.

But if it must be made accessible, let it be accessible to all. I support Open Pardons.