Pardon by Committee?

I could not help but stare at my screen in astonishment when reading Jonathan Martin’s piece on the Biden administration’s potential plan “to issue preemptive pardons to a range of current and former public officials.” In part, I was astonished by how bad an idea this is. More pressingly, though, I was astonished by how brazenly Biden’s team — and the press that covers it — acts as if the President of the United States were dead. Nowhere in Martin’s story is there any reference to Biden other than as an abstraction who would theoretically need to be brought into line. Is that how our government works now?

Martin records that:

President Joe Biden’s senior aides are conducting a vigorous internal debate over whether to issue preemptive pardons to a range of current and former public officials

and that:

Biden’s aides are deeply concerned about a range of current and former officials who could find themselves facing inquiries and even indictments

and that:

The White House officials, however, are carefully weighing the extraordinary step of handing out blanket pardons to those who’ve committed no crimes

and that:

The West Wing deliberations have been organized by White House counsel Ed Siskel but include a range of other aides, including chief of staff Jeff Zients

“Biden’s senior aides.” “Biden’s aides.” “White House officials.” “West Wing deliberations.” Is there a missing piece here, perhaps?

Martin confirms that these conversations were not spurred by the potential recipients:

“The beneficiaries know nothing,” one well-connected Democrat told me about those who could receive pardons.

Okay. And the president? Does he know anything?:

The president himself, who was intensely focused on his son’s pardon, has not been brought into the broader pardon discussions yet, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Good grief.

By design, the pardon power is almost absolute. It is not reviewable by Congress, it is not justiciable in the courts, and, if recent history is any guide, its terms are sufficiently malleable as to permit all manner of shenanigans that, as the Anti-Federalists anticipated, sit uneasily in a republic such as ours. The only saving grace of the power is that, unlike the monarchical authority that inspired it, it resides in an elected figure — indeed, in the only elected figure in the entire executive branch. To have “senior aides” engaged in a “vigorous internal debate” over an idea this crazy — and for the president to be absent while they do — does great violence to that grace.