The pardon The politics of of presidential mercy

"When it comes to pardons, presidents are kings," states Toobin at the outset of his clarifying inquiry into this controversial power. Adept at covering complex issues, personalities, and historical events, from the Supreme Court to Timothy McVeigh, in brisk, informative, and involving narratives, Toobin unspools the fascinating history of the pardon, from the Framers on through an eye-opening survey of presidential administrations. His primary focus is on President Gerald Ford's precipitous pardon of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, in the wake of the Watergate crimes. Toobin brings fresh insights and information to this notorious decision and its repercussions, recounting in avid detail behind-the-scenes arguments and schemes, impatience and misjudgments, lies and incompetence. He vividly portrays Nixon's steely allies and Ford's floundering staff and reveals how the wrangling over Nixon's papers and the infamous White House tapes increased the tension and raised the stakes. Toobin also delves into newly urgent questions of presidential immunity and how the current president's self-serving misuse of pardons undermines the justice system and endangers democracy. A lucid, dramatic, and timely illumination of a key and easily abused presidential power.

Legal commentator Toobin examines the power of presidents to pardon others--and perhaps themselves. "There is…no check or balance on the president's power to pardon. It is the provision of the Constitution most directly descended from the authority of kings of England," writes Toobin. His exemplar throughout is Richard Nixon, who might have pardoned those whose work led to his downfall but instead sought precedent that would allow him to pardon himself. Some of his advisers, especially Al Haig, argued that whatever the Constitution does not specifically prohibit is permitted, while a legal opinion from the Justice Department likened self-pardon to a judge conducting his own trial. Nixon negotiated a pardon from Gerald Ford, who had earlier promised the public that he would not grant one; what swayed Ford were documents that Nixon had squirreled away, much as Donald Trump did at the end of his first term. "Seen in this way," writes Toobin, "Nixon used his papers as a form of extortion--and it worked." Trump, too, has studied self-pardon, tweeting with characteristic bombast, "As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?" Ford took a shellacking for pardoning Nixon, although Toobin persuasively argues that the pardon wasn't the make-or-break reason for his defeat in the 1976 election that it has been made out to be. Interestingly, too, Toobin observes that had Nixon looked beyond his close circle of advisers, he would have discovered that the Justice Department "had no intention of prosecuting Nixon," just as, it seems, the department is walking away from Trump. A sharp-edged work of legal journalism that will fascinate politics junkies. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.