The Truth About the Presidential Pardon Power With Margaret Love & Mark Allenbaugh

It’s January 2025, and we’re in the final days of the Biden administration.  He has had a busy last month or so issuing pardons and commutations.  

This unfettered power is rightly scrutinized but often misunderstood.  The bigger problem is, the whole damn process appears to be broken.  And although Pres. Biden has done some good things with his power, it still represents a small fraction of those languishing in prison who deserve action.

Margeret Love was the head of the US Pardon office from 1990-97, she had a front row seat to the pardon process, and continues to represent clients seeking pardons. Mark Allenbaugh needs no introduction.  His stats help us put many of these decisions into the proper perspective.  Both of them join us on the first episode of the new year to lend their unique perspective to this very timely issue!

 

IN THIS EPISODE

 

• The Hunter Biden Pardon
• The 1500 commutations of those who BOP had released to home confinement during Covid;
• The difference between pardons and clemency;
• When did things really start to go off the rails in the US Pardon office? (spoiler alert, it was the Clinton years);
• Is it true that when you accept a pardon it is an admission of guilt?
• Trumps promise to pardon the January 6th defendants;
• Can a president pardon himself?
• Why the pardon essentially makes the president the "DOJ’s Janitor";
• How the pardon power should be managed going forward;
• Michael Conahan commutation (the judge embroiled in “cash for kids” scandal);
• Rita Crundwell (Dixon, IL Comptroller fraud) commutation.

 

LINKS:

For more info on the Rita Crundwell Case, there's a great documentary produced by Prof. Kelly Richmond Pope called "All the Queens Horses" currently available on Amazon Prime (https://www.amazon.com/All-Queens-Horses-Gene-Biggerstaff/dp/B07BPNGP85).  She also writes about it in her book, "Fool Me Once" https://a.co/d/hQzJFUY

I had Dr. Pope on the podcast to talk about this case a while back 

As for the "Kids for Cash" judge who just had his sentence commuted, here's his wiki page:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Conahan

Here's our two previous episodes on Hunter Biden.  The first talks in detail about the political nature of his prosecution and his original plea bargain falling apart and the next happened live after he pled guilty in California: 

Ep. 64: Too Cute by Half: Why Hunter's Plea Went South:  https://youtu.be/sWEzwKLQCoo?si=rK3qRURAJVQtXXk5

Ep. 92: Livestream Bonus: Hunter Biden Edition:  https://www.youtube.com/live/B3VL-cJlXSo?si=r1zAdBS6C2s_STTO(make sure you forward through the first two minutes of tech disaster)  And we talk in depth about the concept of "lawfare".