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ALICE IS BACK… AND A ‘SUBSTANTIAL BATCH” OF CLEMENCY GRANTS MAY BE COMING
After President Trump appointed former federal inmate Alice Marie Johnson to be his “pardon czar” last February, she seemed to disappear. No one even knew whether she’d have a White House office as opposed to mere corresponding privileges with Trump.
Last week, we learned a little about what she is doing and got a hint that a clemency release is looming. In a Fox News interview with Lara Trump (which included a lot of fawning over the President), Johnson said, “President Trump had asked me to go find people like myself, and I brought many to the White House and President Trump gave those individuals a second chance…” She said that she “sent over 100 clemency and pardon petitions to the White House” and “46 people really were able to get a second chance in life…”
Johnson suggested that her criteria included people “who deserve this second chance who are similarly situated, not just like me, but who have served enough time, who have paid their debt to society, plus there are those who have been, I’m going to say, the victims of lawfare the same way our President was.”
“Lawfare” as commonly used refers to an attempt to damage or delegitimize an opponent, or to deter an individual’s usage of his or her legal rights. President Trump has said that his indictments for January 6th conspiracy, mishandling of national security documents, Georgia election interference, and New York “hush money” allegations were all lawfare against him.
A batch of clemency grants may be on the horizon. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that clemency for some plain folks may be coming, “The president, according to a senior administration official, has taken a particular interest in the work of Alice Johnson, the pardon czar he appointed earlier this year,” the Journal said. “He regularly asks her, ‘Where are my pardons?’ The White House is expected to announce a substantial batch of pardons in the coming weeks, the official said.”
But that’s about the only good news about clemency. Ed Martin, the man who was so reckless as acting District of Columbia U.S. Attorney that his nomination for that position couldn’t get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has seized the helm as Dept of Justice Pardon Attorney. Last week, Martin–described as an “egregiously unqualified political hack who has never served either as a prosecutor or judge” by over 100 former federal prosecutors who signed a letter opposing his appointment to the U.S. Attorney position–said last week that “I do think that the Biden pardons need some scrutiny… And they need scrutiny because we want pardons to matter and to be accepted and to be something that’s used correctly. So I do think we’re going to take a hard look.”
Martin tried to use his office as Acting U.S. Attorney to threaten everyone from DOJ prosecutors to members of Congress to medical journals to people critical of Elon Musk to Wikipedia’s tax-exempt status. Now, not the least bit inconvenienced by the fact that Presidential pardons cannot be undone, he intends to spend the Pardon Office’s time looking at pardons of which he disapproves (and this from a guy who as Acting U.S. Attorney dismissed a January 6th felony case against a man he had represented as defense attorney).
Meanwhile, the pardon bazaar continues. Rumors are flying that Sean “Diddy” Combs is seeking a pardon to end his seamy federal sex crimes trial in New York, that former Minneapolis cop Derek Chavin could be pardoned for his federal civil rights conviction stemming the murder of George Floyd, that former Congressman George Santos is seeking a pardon to avoid a federal prison sentence imposed for fraud-related convictions, and that those perennial celebrity prisoner whiners Todd and Julie Chrisley are renewing their campaign for pardons from their federal fraud convictions.
A couple of clemency grants for just plain prisoners would be a welcome change.
Fox News, Trump ‘pardon czar’ details how she’ll help incarcerated Americans who ‘paid their dues’ (May 17, 2025) (video)
The Wall Street Journal, The Wild West of Presidential Pardons in Trump’s Second Term (May 13, 2025)
Law and Crime, ‘We want pardons to matter’: Trump admin will ‘take a hard look’ at final grants of clemency issued by Biden, Ed Martin says (May 13, 2025)
– Thomas L. Root