The Pour Over Today - Presidential Pardons TPO Explains I 11.15.25

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

Readers of The Pour Over pick a topic to have explained, and Jason and Kathleen have to get Joe to understand it in less than 30 minutes… This week, they’re explaining Presidential Pardons. Looking to support us? You can choose to pay here Check out our sponsors! We actually use and enjoy every single one.CruSafe House ProjectUpsideMoshLife Application Study BibleLMNTShe Reads TruthQuinceCCCUSurfsharkTheology in the RawHoly PostNot Just Sunday Podcast The Pour Over’s Newsletters:The Pour OverDecafNews HealthPraying the News

Today's episode is brought to you by our lead sponsor, Crew. Wait, when is your birthday, Joe? It's today. Happy birthday, No place I'd rather be than spending it with you too. That's right. Are you doing anything tonight for your birthday? Yes, Emily's making one of my favorite meals, which is baked ziti.

I love baked ziti or lasagna, and then also the kicker here for dessert, she's making whole homemade french silk pie oh yum nice i like it do you always have big ziti on your birthday or is that like you get to pick every year and it always changes it usually alternates between big ziti and lasagna wow the big pastas yeah yeah no big fan on your birthday what dessert do you have to have kathleen um honestly as long as there's dessert i'm happy i'm really not too picky when it comes to dessert, just, it has to be there. I grew up, my mom bakes. She doesn't, I mean, she cooked for us as well, but she kind of tolerated cooking and

she still bakes all the time. And I didn't realize, like, we had fresh baked dessert, I mean, three or four times a week all the time. And we would throw away dessert because it was just, you don't, you don't eat like two-day-old caramel bars. Are you kidding? Like, there will just be fresh caramel bars tomorrow. And so it became a joke that we're all dessert snobs.

And, you know, so we started giving away our day old caramel bars to people. And they're like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. And it's like, yeah, no, Sherry will make more. Of all the things Sherry made, what was, what's your favorite? The caramel bars are probably, probably the best. She makes really good scotcheroos. the caramel bars honestly the caramel bars are just proof

that butter and sugar is real good as soon as you make them you don't like them as much it's a lot of butter and a lot of brown sugar but they're so good caramel

yeah caramel are you a caramel I don't really know caramel what seems natural to you I don't know I'm not sure

it just sounds I think you said caramel a lot it started to sound weird Hello and welcome to another episode of TPO Explains. I'm Joe, podcast producer here at The Porover, and I'm here with Jason, our founder and editor-in-chief, and Kathleen, our managing editor. So here's the idea behind the show.

Our readers share which topics they want us to explore, and then we bring that to the podcast. Today's winner? presidential pardons I was just saying I'm real excited about this one me too

it's actually a very interesting topic in my opinion I thought I knew a lot about it really didn't know that much come to find out yeah I'd say I kind of had a similar experience I felt more confident

in my knowledge of presidential pardons than when I started getting into it and was like wow yeah there's a lot of layers and a lot of fun history I think that's

part of what makes it fun yeah so let's kick it off what is a pardon Joe I think the principal I mean think of faith and and us being pardoned from what we deserve so I would say the idea of a presidential pardon is the president wielding the power to remove the sentence of punishment for an individual yeah that's pretty good so It comes from Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution, and the relevant quote is, he shall have power, he being the president, shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States except in cases of impeachment. So my next question is, what is a reprieve? Oh, boy.

Yeah, that's okay. So a reprieve is, well, taking a step back, pardons fall under the broad. category of clemency so and clemency also interestingly means mercy so just this umbrella of mercy that the president can offer yes so there are pardons which is to it's the forgiveness of a crime and it restores civil rights so if if you had lost your right to vote you can now vote you can be on jury duty again great honor and privilege you can hold public office It is saying, hey, the criminal system got this wrong or we're going to forgive the offense. It does not, in almost every definition, it's clear that it does not signify innocence, but it does signify forgiveness from the offense.

So maybe they got it wrong with the extent of the, you know, conviction or sentence or whatever, but it does not signify innocence. It also doesn't, like, remove it from your record. It still shows on your record, along with a pardon. Right, but you've been given for games. Yeah, so removal of a crime from your record is called expungement, and that basically does not exist. My understanding is that the only way to have a crime expunged is if it's like a first-time misdemeanor, and through, in certain circumstances, it can be removed. But in every other instance of all these different types of clemency we're going to talk through, there's still a record of it, and there's just the record of the clemency that forgives or alters the sentence.

Would expungement have to be like an act of a court? I believe so. Yes. Yep. Okay. So you have pardons, which is, we'll say, complete forgiveness. A reprieve is a delay of punishment. So it really, I couldn't find good, like, famous examples of reprieves.

It comes up a lot in capital cases where there's like, hey, this person is going to be, they're going to be put to death tomorrow. And the president can say, hey, we're going to delay that for one week while the appeal to let them appeal again or to give me more time to consider whether or not I'm going to issue a pardon. That's really the main scenario where reprieves come in. But then there's all these things kind of underneath a pardon. And the general principle, how I'm thinking about it is, if a president can completely forgive a crime, they can also do less than that in basically any different way. And so you have a commutation, which is saying, hey, that crime, the conviction stands and was correct, but the penalty was too harsh. you're sentenced to 10 years, you only have to serve five or one, and they can choose whatever. And that one does not restore your civil liberties.

Yeah, that's a good note. I don't think, well, okay, so then another one is a remission. So that is a reduction or a removal of a fine. Also, not many famous examples of this, except do you know, who do you think of all the presidents had a fondness for remission? remitting payments. Is this obvious? No. Oh.

No, it is not obvious. It is Abe Lincoln. Apparently, he just as like a favorite pastime would review the fines given to union soldiers and go through and be like, no, we're going to get rid of that one. And like, so he would review and be like if there were any extenuating circumstances. and he personally reviewed these as like, oh, that person's wife was going through something, or they deserted, but then they came back, we're just going to get rid of the fine. And so it doesn't come up very often, but old Abe Lincoln wanted to make sure the union soldiers weren't paying too many fines.

Are there, oh, there's one more, and Kathleen and I might fight on this one a little bit. You come around? We'll see. We'll see. Okay. Amnesty. So amnesty is basically a pardon for a group of people as opposed to for an individual. And the most famous example of this is, was it Jimmy Carter? I think so. Yeah. Jimmy Carter issued amnesty for people who evaded the Vietnam draft and just said, we're not going to prosecute that crime. That was a crime. We acknowledge that was a crime. But we're just. not it's not good for the nation. We're just going to give amnesty a broad pardon for this group of

people. What would you guys fight on on this topic? Just when we were talking about the limitations of the presidential power of clemency, amnesty can kind of exist in both because there's amnesty by law, which I don't have a good example of, but I assume like Congress can say we're going to, I don't know, Congress can offer amnesty for. So I have an example. in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which was signed by Reagan. So it's a law, but it granted amnesty to about 3 million undocumented immigrants who met certain conditions. And so, yeah. Yeah, so you can have amnesty by law and then also amnesty from the president.

But it's just like semantics at that point. It's just you could say I'm pardoning all these people who evaded the draft or you can say I'm offering amnesty to. these people. So it's just amnesty as pardons for a group. Yeah. No fighting. No fighting. Good. Hey, it's Emily from the pourover. I redid my home office this year and my absolute favorite part ended up being the curtains. They're from quince and the quality honestly blew me away. They look and feel so high end, but they didn't come with the crazy price tag. Now I'm officially a quince lover. I've been eyeing their other home pieces. and I'm already planning to gift a few of their timeless staples this Christmas.

Their cashmere sweaters, leather bags, shoes, and even jeans all have that designer look and feel, but at prices that actually make sense. So if you're looking for gifts that people will actually love and that last, check out quits. You'll be shocked at the quality for the price. Give and get quality that lasts this season with quince. Go to quince.com slash TPO for free shipping and thanks. 365-day returns, and now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E-D-com slash T-P-O. Okay, Joe, can you name anyone who has received a presidential pardon?

Recency bias, Rudy Giuliani. Ding, ding. Anyone else? I cannot think of anyone else on the top of my head. All right, so some other names you. might have known Kodak Black. Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne, yep.

No ceilings. That was his mixtape. Anyway, so going through history, you mentioned the Vietnam War era. That was one of the, like, the first kind of biggest broad amnesty offered to people. No. Civil War. Yeah, Civil War. Because Lincoln offered, and I guess,

the phrasing of it that I read was a little weird. It was like later amounted to amnesty. He did some presidential proclamation saying that they wouldn't prosecute anyone who fought for the Confederacy. Yeah. National healing and all that. And that's also where Thanksgiving came from. No, Abraham Lincoln did a lot. Anyway, okay, so Richard Nixon was pardoned by his vice president and successor Gerald Ford.

and that was notable because Ford actually caught a lot of flack for it, but he did it in an effort to heal the nation to, to just kind of move forward from the scandal. And part of what was controversial about that is like there were not specific charges that had been filed against Nixon. He obviously resigned with the whole Watergate thing, but it was like, hey, just this, you can't even go there, this broad pardon, which we saw again more recently with,

Joe Biden pardoning Hunter, it was again this very, it was like a decade, hey, anything from 2014 to 2024, any federal crimes that may have been committed, there's a pardon. Yeah. You had President Obama commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, so that was kind of a notable one that was in in the news a lot. Roger Stone was commuted, his sentence was commuted by President Trump, Hunter Biden. and then the January 6 writers also recently got pardons and commutation. It was more than 1,000 people who received that.

Yeah, I think it was 1,500. And again, I don't know if that's amnesty. I mean, amnesty is a term that we decide when to use, I guess. It's not like that word doesn't show up in the Constitution. Maybe you guys are going to get to this, but you mentioning like the Hunter Biden example where it's kind of this blanket, hey, this. is untouchable from this period of that period, is there checks and balances with presidential pardons? Great question.

Yeah. Presidential pardons actually exist in this great area of it is very uniquely the most unilateral power given to the executive branch. There are no checks and balances, almost no checks and balances. A president can say, I'm going to issue this pardon, and it's irrevocable. and you cannot challenge it. That's just as long as a federal crime, as long as it's a crime against the United States.

So we can talk later about things you can't issue pardons for, but like state crimes doesn't apply. As long as it's a crime against the United States and as long as it's not impeachment, then a pardon can be issued. Wow. And that was the founding fathers in the federalist papers. I forget who wrote it.

Alexander Hamilton. Hey, okay. Right. So in the Federalist papers, Alexander Hamilton talked about that and saying like this, that is a feature of the pardon that we want to remove any bureaucracy. We want to remove any limits and just say there is someone who can say mercy is needed in this spot. And and there's there's just no hurdles to jump through. Yeah. But yes, the flip side of that is, I mean, basically a president. could just empty federal prisons and say, like, hey, every... Amnesty. Yes, amnesty for all crimes.

And there's, the only recourse for that would be Congress could impeach that president, but they could not reverse the pardon or amnesty. That's right. And, I mean, it's, in like reading about this, it was interesting because, so Alexander Hamilton put it in his federalist papers, but apparently there was a little bit like the inspiration came from like monarchies in England who had, it was called prerogatives of mercy where they could offer this to people.

And so Hamilton was like, oh, we should do something like this. And people were like, they got, you know, PTSD from their British kin. Yeah. But anyway, they decided it was good, but they did intentionally separate judicial powers from pardoning powers because they felt like that was a good balance. Like the people who like do the sentencing

shouldn't also get to do that. pardoning. And then the check was just like, okay, well, if this really goes awry, we can impeach the president, and he can't give himself, or she wouldn't, give himself a pardon, and that will prevent total authoritarian power. All right, Joe, let's say you are accused or convicted of a federal crime. How do you go about getting a pardon? Does it have to go through my lawyer, somehow I need to get the message to the president, like, hey, can you please consider forgiveness? That is the problem. You're right. You have to get, you have to get the attention of the president. You got to get the attention of the president. So that is, I would say, the first option. And what seems to be the preferred option these days is like make a big stink on Twitter, hope that Netflix makes a documentary about you, somehow get the attention of the president.

Because it is this broad unchecked power, and they can even pardon things for crimes that have not been charged. Yeah, very broad power. There is another method, which is you can go through the office of the pardon attorney. So this is, it sits in the executive branch, and it's under the DOJ, and basically you submit an application, and there's an office that reviews it. But what I found so fascinating is just to handle the requests they get. They have all these kind of stipulations, you know, requirements. And one of them is it has to be, you cannot apply or be considered through this office until five years after your sentence is served.

So if you have a 10-year prison sentence, you need to serve the entire 10 years and then wait five years and then apply. So the intent of this is not to like prevent an unjust sentence or whatever. It is really just to acknowledge rehabilitation. Wow. So practically speaking, that would not help you, but it's more on the principle of receiving a pardon after five years of your sentence being completed. I mean, the application.

And whenever I remember looking at the application for the office of the pardon attorney and it was like you have to show like what have you done to reintegrate into society. Like it was a very thorough and, you know, so this idea that somebody can complete their sentence, get reintegrated into society, you know, really turn things around and then go through all of the effort to show they've turned things around and then, you know, submit there because they just want the civil liberties back. they just want, you know, to feel like, okay, I've done, can I get this? Not removed from my record, but like the forgiveness for this. I mean, all of these applications come through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and you can, you submit the applications, the office reviews them, sends them to the president. They feel like they should be reviewed by the president.

It's not bound by presidential terms. So let's say when Trump entered the office in January, there was still 4,000 left over from Biden's term or something like that. So you don't have to reapply if, you know, you applied last year and it still hasn't been reviewed yet, like Trump would, it'd be on Trump's, you know, desk now. But a small percentage of those applications even make it to the president and then an even smaller percentage get approved. So like with, I would say anywhere from, I don't know, 5 to 10 percent of pardons maybe get approved. Some of them are denied. Some of them are closed without action.

I don't know, 5 to 10 percent of commutations get approved. The, yeah, the broad takeaway is that we hear about these in the news, kind of like shark attacks, almost every one that happens you hear about. Like, they're super rare. Okay. What do you think, we've kind of talked about this. What do you think are some limitations on a president's power to pardon? You mentioned impeachment, right? So there's one.

you said it's pretty unilateral, the power that he or she can wield. Yeah. I mean, it does have to fit in that category of federal crime. So I think that'd be the only other note we kind of mentioned earlier. If it's a state crime, states have different, like, clemency boards that can review petitions to the state level. You had a chart at some point. Yeah. We can put, we'll find it and put it up.

Um, the, so states, different states handle it differently. A lot of them just kind of model it after the federal government and the, the power of clemency rests with the governor broadly unchecked, except for state crimes. Uh, a few states do have boards of pardons or boards of clemency. And those can act different ways. Some states, it's like the governor appoints the board and then the board takes care of all of it. other times, like I know in Texas, the governor, I think, appoints the board or the board is somehow appointed. And then the board presents requests to the governor. So the governor makes the decision, but they can only consider requests that come through the board. And then there are a few states that do that the board of pardons is made up of the governor, the chief justice of the state Supreme Court, and the attorney general. And so two of those three positions need to agree. And so you can see some of the states are like, hey, we have a good model and we like

the lack of bureaucracy. And others are like, we feel like we need some more checks and balances on this. Well, and even like in Alabama, a board decides except for capital cases. And then the governor would have a say. So that's a good, good, there's nuance to all of this. And if you are actually seeking a pardon or commutation, consult with your lawyer. Yeah. And I mean, there also is different. We can put the chart up again, but there are different levels of like how often a state approves these. Like if they're, if you're very likely to get clemency or if it's like, yeah, you could try, but the state hardly ever approves. So yeah, a wide range. Ready for some good news? According to the American Bible Society, interest in the Bible is rising in the U.S., especially among Gen Z and millennials.

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dot CRU.org slash P-O-U-R message and data rates may apply available to U.S. addresses only. Should we I don't think we're going to limit it to 90 seconds because I also have a fun fact.

I have just go into fun facts. I have the greatest of the most interesting of fun facts. You are really hyping this up. I'm excited. Kathleen, you want to go first. Let's let the anticipation for my better my better fact to build or do you want me to go no i can go i mean my

your fact is more fun um so my fact is just that you um you can also have conditional pardons so like a president can say all right i'll i'll pardon you if blank and so there was um bill clinton pardoned someone mark rich and he's described as a shrewd swashbuckling oil trader but anyway so he was indicted on charges of widespread tax evasion illegal dealings with iran like during an embargo like wild stuff um he fled to switzerland and i don't know there's some politics there potentially some donations were made and so clinton um like i think it was right at the end of his presidency oh yeah the last hours when he was in office um he pardoned him and said i'll pardon you but you cannot defend yourself uh you can't you can't you use the pardon as defense in any future civil, you know, actions related to this case if you ever come back to the States. And he just never came back. So he was, so you can have a conditional pardon. But it's kind of loophole. Yeah. He was like, I just won't come back. I'll live in Switzerland. All right. You ready? I'm ready. So you can reject a pardon. Oh. Now, you might be

wondering, how do we know this? Who has rejected it to force the legal determination of whether or not this is allowed? Well, Supreme Court says, right? Or was? Yes, yeah, yeah. United States v. Wilson in 1833. They ruled that a, that's right, they ruled that a pardon must be accepted to be effective. So George Wilson was convicted of aggravated robbery against a male carrier, federal crime male carrier involved. And what do you think the penalty for the sentence for this aggravated robbery of a male carrier was? Back in 1833? 1833. Tar and feathers?

I mean, honestly, he was sentenced to death by hanging. I really thought it was a duel. I can't move past it. I thought he was, I thought Jason could think of a duel. So now there, there, it was, you know, 1833. The details have become somewhat fuzzy. But somehow President Andrew Jackson learns about this. And he doesn't give any reason why.

Presumably he's just like this is a ridiculous sentence for this crime. And so he pardons him. And then for reasons also completely unknown, George Wilson says, I don't want your pardon. And so then the courts are like in this weird situation of like, I think you have to accept the pardon. Like I think we can't punish you for this crime now. And he's like, no, punish me for the crime.

Like I'm not accepting the pardon. And so this like reverse trial goes up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court ruled that a pardon is a form of grace extended by the president and it must be accepted. And so George Wilson was hanged. What a wild story. Also, I mean, the legal precedent with that

ended up, you know, you can't just say, oh, I was offered a pardon. Can I just, like, just do like five years since I was offered a pardon? I'll still serve my time. It's like all or nothing. Either you take the pardon or you don't. It doesn't decrease your sentence. It doesn't decrease the, you know, the

conviction or anything like that. So that was and a very on-the-nose gospel lesson of accepting grace. Yes, yeah. I'm going to read that line one more time. The Supreme Court ruled that a pardon is a form of grace extended by the president and must be accepted. Just exactly right on the nose. Is that the perfect segue into our Christian perspective?

I think so. I'll start. So I was reflecting on pardons and what? what it felt like I needed to hear. And it feels like pardons that make the news recently over the last few years, you have Giuliani very recently, Hunter Biden. They tend to be controversial. And so for me, remembering, hey, let's be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. And part of that is just

recognizing like the finality of the pardon. And it just it was like, you know, there is no value for me to dwell on this, to get upset, and I don't have the president's ear, and I just need to let it go and move on, and this isn't something that's worthy in my time. And then I have also just been wrestling with the like, man, it feels, there are times when it feels like, hey, that person shouldn't have been pardoned. And really just is convicting in a, when you turn that around on yourself, It's like, could there be a more clear parallel to the gospel of like, yes, and I have received a pardon for all sorts of sins, a blanket pardon for all sins, including future sins. Yeah.

And I am not deserving of that. And yeah, so it's been hard to wrestle with. Yeah. I mean, I think even when you talk about Hunter Biden, that one felt so hard to, because you're like, wow. any past and future sense, things that people know about, things that people don't know about, how is that a thing? And then you think about, like, what Jesus did for us. And you're like, oh, yeah, that's, that is a thing. And so my, my perspective was just, it's easy to see others shortcomings, whether you don't agree with the person issuing the pardon or the person

receiving the pardon, but just to turn things around and, and check our own hearts. And the verse that came to mind was the sawdust and, um, spec. Yeah. It's back in your own eye. I mean, yeah, just. It's hard. It's uncomfortable. We want justice, but we want justice for other people and we want grace for ourselves. And I don't think there's a clear answer, but I would encourage listeners to wrestle internally with that.

It's been good. Yeah, this was so interesting. And like you guys said, the most clear parallel. to the gospel. So it was fun learning about this, but then also just the deeper meaning of what this idea of pardoning emulates, you know, truly with the gospel. So thanks everyone for joining us on another episode of TPO Explains. As a reminder, you can watch this episode on YouTube and Spotify. Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe. We'd love to hear thoughts and feedback. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time. Bye.

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