Now, I think vague pardons for unspecified crimes is legally dubious. Can you be pardoned for “whatever crime you may have committed between 2014 and 2024?”
Look, you being pardoned after being charged? There’s no doubt at all. But preemptively? And can the President say, “I pardon anyone in my cabinet or Democrat in Congress for any crime they may have ever committed?”
Can the President just pardon any illegal alien before leaving office? You know, implement a de facto change of immigration policy? And Hunter racked up $300,00 in rent debt during that time. Does he owe it anymore, or is that landlord just out of luck? And if so, does that represent a Constitutionally prohibited “taking?”
If not, why not?
Can the President say that he pardons anyone with brown eyes for any crime they may have committed in the last decade? Sure, that is silly, but CAN he?
Are there limits on the pardon power? We really need a ruling from SCOTUS. In the past, Presidents have simply not pushed things that far. But Joe Biden is breaking entirely new ground…
My own opinion is that if a person is charged, he or she can be pardoned. But it has to be a specific person charged with a pretty specific crime.