The sky is falling! Once again, an action by President Donald Trump has many Washington insiders crying that the republic is in peril due to his unprecedented and dangerous use of his powers. On August 25, the President pardoned controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for his refusal to follow a federal court directive, which was contrary to federal immigration law, to stop his hard-line policing of illegal immigrants. That refusal to obey the court amounted to a criminal act. Arpaio, 85, faced six months in jail for his conviction.
Usual suspects lined up to slam President Trump for this use of Presidential power. First out of the gate was the ACLU, but top Democrats and several Republicans piled on. To many this was an abuse of the power to pardon, which is enshrined in the Constitution for American chief executives. Editorials were written to condemn the President, and the talking heads on cable and network news spent countless minutes dissecting the move.
I do not approve of Arpaio’s refusal to accept the direction of Federal courts who told him to cease and desist in his actions. We Americans are a people of law, and even if we disagree with the outcome, when the courts have spoken, that must be an end to it. But what is lacking in the almost frenzied attempt to again paint the President with the blackest of motives is some sort of perspective. So, once again, I take pen to paper (okay — fingers to computer!) to teach those who are eager to besmirch President Trump some history of the use of Presidential pardons. Following are some instances of clemency awarded to individuals who committed far more egregious crimes, yet were given a pass for their sins against the body politic.
First up is Brigham Young. Young, who led the Mormons to the Utah territory in the late 1840s, founded Salt Lake City and served as Utah’s first territorial governor. But he was somewhat autocratic, and then President James Buchanan dispatched an army contingent to Utah to control the area for the federal government. Called the Utah War, this conflict included the infamous Mountain Meadow Massacre, which ended on September 11, 1857, with the murder of about 120 emigrants by Mormons, emigrants whose only crime was crossing what is now southern Utah. In a complicated “war”, lasting over a year, there were a few more deaths and much destruction of property. Army trains were attacked and looted and Mormon settlements were sometimes destroyed. Finally, in late 1858, President James Buchanan issued a “full pardon” for all actions to that time, excepting the Mountain Meadow instigators. Included in this pardon was Young, and even today it is not clear his culpability in the crimes against the government and civilian travelers. Only one person stood trial for those crimes. Much criticism of the pardon was directed at the White House, as the Utah War was commonly called “Buchanan’s Blunder”. Joe Arpaio’s crime pales in comparison with the deeds that caused the Democrat, Buchanan, to pardon those responsible for much more serious crimes than his.
Perhaps one of the most controversial Presidential clemencies occurred during the administration of Richard Nixon. James Hoffa, head of the powerful Teamsters’ Union, had his sentence commuted by Nixon. Convicted in federal court of bribing a grand jury member, and also of misuse of union funds, Hoffa was sentenced to seven and five years on the respective counts. He did not serve out his sentence, as President Nixon commuted his sentence in the early ’70s. He did not live to enjoy that freedom, as he disappeared from a Detroit restaurant’s parking lot in the mid ’70s, never to be heard from again. His crimes also seem quite a bit more serious than Sheriff Joe’s.
The aforementioned President Nixon was also the recipient of a Presidential pardon. He was caught up in the well-known scandal we know as Watergate. Operatives for the Committee to Reelect the President broke into the offices of the Democratic National Committee during the 1972 presidential campaign. Before the sad saga ended, President Nixon was charged with two crimes for which he was facing impeachment. With the certainty of being impeached by the House of Representatives and being convicted by the U. S. Senate, Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. His successor, Gerald Ford, issued the former chief executive a pardon for all crimes he may have committed, even though he had never been charged with any. With this in our history, why all the angst about a mostly obscure Arizona sheriff?
Another 1970s pardon was one that caught the public’s attention. In 1974, the 19-year-old granddaughter of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, Patricia Hearst, was kidnapped by a group that called itself the Symbionese Liberation Army and held for ransom. Within a short time, Patty Hearst announced that she had, of her own volition, joined that “army”. She then, within a few days of this pronouncement, was captured on camera holding a rifle as her compatriots robbed a bank. After an intense manhunt, the FBI captured her a year later. She was sentenced to seven years in prison. However, President Jimmy Carter, after she had spent only 22 months in jail, reasoned the punishment was too harsh and commuted her sentence to time served. Carter then convinced President Bill Clinton to issue a full pardon in 2001 as he was leaving office. Joe Arpaio was never seen robbing banks, wild west style, in Arizona. Yet President Trump has been demonized for issuing a pardon for his much less serious crime.
Marc Rich was a commodities trader in the early 1980s when he was convicted of evading $48 million in taxes and for illegally trading in oil with the Iranians. Before beginning his sentence, in 1983, Rich decamped to Switzerland to avoid the jail time. But he had influential help back home. His ex-wife was a fundraiser for the Democratic Party and had given monetary aid to Hillary Clinton in her campaign for New York’s junior Senate seat. On his last day in office President Bill Clinton pardoned Rich, allowing him to return home in “triumph”. Sheriff Joe didn’t come close to earning $48 million in his career, yet by listening to President Trumps critics one would gather he pardoned Lizzie Borden.
Three days before leaving office in January of this year, then President Barack Obama commuted the sentence of one Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning) after he/she spent seven years in federal prison. His/her crime? Passing to WikiLeaks thousands of classified documents on the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq — this netted Manning a 35 year sentence. His/her crime arguably put Americans lives at risk, yet President Obama considered she had been punished enough. You didn’t hear Democrats scream as loud about this “abuse” of presidential clemency as they have about the Arpaio pardon. Can anyone spell hypocrisy?
One of the most sensational of all Presidential clemencies came on August 11, 1999. President Bill Clinton issued pardons for sixteen members of FALN, a Puerto Rican paramilitary group. This organization was responsible for setting off at lest 120 bombs in New York and Chicago, and was responsible for at least six deaths and numerous injuries. Convictions were for the bomb-making, conspiracy to commit robbery and various firearm violations. For their sins, the men and women of FALN, caught after a lengthy investigation by federal officials, received prison terms of 35 to 105 years. Outrage was expressed in Congress and around the nation, but since the power to issue pardons and commutations is absolute, nothing could be done about Clinton’s actions. Joe Arpaio’s six months looks trivial compared to what the FALN members were awarded.
On the subject of Bill Clinton’s pardons, he issued 140 on his last day in office, causing some to dub his actions Pardongate. Included in his many acts of executive clemency were two Democratic Congressmen. One, Dan Rostenkowski, had been convicted of problems with misuse of funds in the Congressional Post Office scandal and was pardoned by Clinton. The other, Mel Reynolds, a Chicago Congressman, had been convicted of bank fraud, 12 counts of sexual assault, obstruction of justice, and solicitation of child pornography. His sentence was commuted on the bank fraud conviction, and he was allowed to serve the rest of his time on the other charges in a halfway house. In addition, Clinton pardoned his brother, Roger, on a drug conviction for which he served his sentence. This, of course, restored Roger Clinton’s civil privileges which include voting and being eligible for certain professions.
On the subject of commutations and pardons, Pew Research Center reported that President Obama issued 1,715 commutations and 212 pardons, granting clemency to more people than any President other than Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. No statistics are available for the Presidents before 1900.
Folks, this is just the tip of the proverbial pardon iceberg. From George Washington, who pardoned those involved in the Whiskey Rebellion, to Donald Trump who just issued his first pardon, the power of clemency for Presidents has been exercised. And down through all 45 administrations since 1789, Democrat, Republican and Whig, there have been those who severely criticized some of those pardons and commutations. But given the severity of the crimes pardoned and sentences commuted, all this agitation about Arpaio’s case show two things about those who criticize — either they are so anti-Trump they would howl if he pardoned the Pope for jaywalking, or are looking for partisan advantage that they have blinders on to the greater sins of malefactors — or both. Needless to say, hypocrisy abounds.
Matthew 23:24 records Jesus’ description of the Pharisees, who would “strain at a gnat but swallow a camel”. Is there a more apt depiction of those who have criticized the President over his pardon of Joe Arpaio?