The pardon power that the Constitution gives the President is sweeping, and the historical norm is to draw up grants of clemency with careful specificity. But President Biden and now President Trump have thrown legal caution to the wind, which can blow in unexpected directions.
This month Mr. Trump issued a capacious and unconditional pardon for a range of behavior related to the 2020 election. The proclamation absolves “all United States citizens for conduct relating to the advice, creation, organization, execution, submission, support, voting, activities, participation in, or advocacy for or of any slate or proposed slate of Presidential electors.”
Mr. Trump had in mind his campaign allies in 2020, many of whom are listed by name, including John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. For them, this forgiveness is pretty much symbolic, because they aren’t under federal indictment, and Mr. Trump’s second term runs until 2029. While some of those mentioned in the proclamation have faced state charges, America’s federalist system gives Mr. Trump no power over those cases.
Matthew Laiss, on the other hand, is scheduled for a federal trial next month. He’s a man who has pleaded not guilty to voter fraud. Yet according to court documents, he acknowledged in an FBI interview that he voted for President Trump twice in 2020, once via mail ballot at his parents’ address in Pennsylvania, and later at an in-person polling site in Florida, where he’d recently moved. Last week his lawyers submitted a motion to dismiss the case, telling the judge that Mr. Trump’s clemency proclamation has wiped away any criminal liability for his double ballot.
Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
