The Trump Clemencies: Celebrity, Chaos, and Lost Opportunity

Abstract

The presidency of Donald Trump may have produced the most chaotic use of the constitutional pardon power in American history. Trump granted clemency to war criminals, to close friends, to celebrities and to the friends of celebrities, with much of it coming in a mad rush at the end of his single term. Buried beneath this rolling disaster was a brief moment of hope and a lost opportunity: the chance for a restructure of the clemency process in the Fall of 2018, enabled by a rare alignment of factors including Trump’s alienation from the Department of Justice and the interest of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. This article explores the fullness of Trump’s clemency legacy and explores what was lost when a vehicle that could have helped stem over-incarceration died on the drafting table.

Keywords: Clemency, pardon power, pardon, commutation, Trump, Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, Lil' Wayne

JEL Classification: K14, K42