U.S. President George W. Bush took the rare step Wednesday of revoking a pardon he had granted only a day before.
Bush pardoned 19 people on Tuesday, including Isaac Robert Toussie of Brooklyn, N.Y., who had been convicted of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and of mail fraud.
On Wednesday, the White House issued an extraordinary statement saying the president was reversing his decision in Toussie's case.
It's a Christmas miracle! Who knew Article II included the power to unpardon the pardoned? Look out Scooter Libby and while we're at it, Richard Nixon and the Iran/Contra crew, the unpardons are on their way.
Update: Raj and Mithras Invicti take issue with this in comments. The case for Bush's power to do this hinges on whether you consider the real pardon to have been granted or just announced (if you see a distinction in this). No surprise, despite Perino's unawareness of any precedents, they exist. See some interesting background here.
I still think this is concerning, considering the President had signed a "master warrant" which could be argued to be the actual act of pardoning. Focusing on the delivery of a piece of paper seems pedantic. Josh also thinks this smells and lists other precedents worth considering.
Perino said she is not aware of any other instance of a pardon reversal, in the Bush administration or others.
If this is allowed to stand, Bush may think he just expanded the office again with another creative (stupid) constitutional interpretation, but instead he has essentially gutted the power of pardons, since your successor can just reverse them.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I generally hate the pardon power as currently construed because it creates an enormous loophole where the President can order subordinates to commit crimes, and guarantee they won't testify against him by pardoning them. He can effectively run a criminal empire far better than any mafia don with a Judge or two in his pocket ever could.
However, there obviously is some sense to having some kind of Pardon mechanism to alleviate unjust applications of the law, or to reward people who really did redeem themselves in deeds after conviction.
I hope Toussie fights this in court, this kind of major precedent should not simply exist in the realm of whatever Bush's White House Counsel thinks or Bush apologists are able to convince a credulous gullible media of.
Bush is trying to change the understood meaning of the constitution. Just because the founders didn't include "no erasies" at the end of the pardon clause doesn't mean it wasn't implied, and a Court should rule on that (one way or the other).
What I really hope for is that this creates such a mess of the pardon power that it builds the impetus for a constitutional amendment to fix and limit the pardon power (leaving what that might be for another day).
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