House Dems push legislation to criminalize quid-pro-quo pardons

[Nevilledog]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/22/democrats-legislation-criminalize-quid-pro-quo-pardons-378037

The House Judiciary Committee has teed up a bill that would criminalize a presidential pardon offered in exchange for anything of value — such as a witness' silence — a key addition to legislation already slated for consideration that would empower Congress to investigate potential abuse of the pardon power.

Under the updated proposal from House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff, a presidential pardon granted — or dangled — to obtain a "thing of value" would be punished under federal bribery laws. The restriction would include not just pardons but commutations — reprieves that reduce prisoners' prison sentences but maintain their convictions.

The sweeping measure is aimed at curtailing abuses of the pardon power that Democrats allege were committed by President Donald Trump in the commutation granted to his longtime confidant Roger Stone. Stone was convicted last year of repeatedly lying to the House Intelligence Committee in its investigation of links between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia — a probe that also examined Trump himself.

Trump has assailed Stone's prosecution as politically motivated, even though the Justice Department repeatedly defended it and Attorney General William Barr called it "righteous." Democrats described Stone's pardon as an unprecedented abuse intended to reward a close ally of the president for frustrating the efforts of investigators looking at Trump's knowledge of a Russian interference effort that damaged his 2016 opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

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