Abuse of pardons is eroding the rule of law

IT'S SHEER coincidence that I'm writing here on the same subject as my Los Angeles Times colleague Jonah Goldberg's most recent column: The crying need to amend the Constitution to do something about the much-abused presidential pardon power, the only unchecked power that a president has.

- JACKIE CALMES COLUMNIST

ON JAN. 6, 2021, rioters storm the Capitol trying to keep President Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

(JOHN MINCHILLO Associated Press)

The fact that both Goldberg, a right-of-center commentator, and I, center-left, would near-simultaneously choose to vent on this topic to call, in effect, for a national uprising against this presidential prerogative despite the evident difficulty of amending the Constitution is telling: It's a reflection of Americans' across-the-spectrum disgust with how modern presidents have perverted it for personal and political benefit, usually on their way out the door. (Goldberg makes the case to get rid of the pardon power altogether. I would give Congress a veto, so presidents still can right actual wrongs of the justice system, as the founders intended.)

Yes, "both sides" are culpable. And yet, Goldberg and I agree, one president has surpassed all others in the shamelessness of his pardons: Donald Trump. In just 10 months he's built a track record sorrier than that of his first term, which is saying something, and elevated clemency reform to an imperative.

We can't stop Trump before he pardons again. Nor, probably, would an amendment campaign succeed before (if?) he leaves office in January 2029. But Americans of all political stripes can at least join in getting the process rolling, if only to protect against future presidents' abuses.