STRANGE MERCIES

Donald Trump has freed rioters, fraudsters, and drug traffickers. Just so long as they're loyal. Or rich.

- DANIEL MOATTAR

IN MEDIEVAL England, there was no law if your pockets were deep. Crimes had fixed costs: A cou- ple of hundred gold coins got you off the hook if you killed a poor man; 2,000 if you killed a rich one. America's founders imagined a different way forward. In their debates about the pardon power, Edmund Randolph, later the first attorney general, demanded an exception for treason. "The Pres- ident may himself be guilty," he objected. “The traitors may be his own instruments.”