• Skip to main content
  • Current
  • Home
  • About
    • About Current
    • Masthead
  • Podcasts
  • Blogs
    • The Way of Improvement Leads Home
    • The Arena
  • Reviews
  • 🔎

presidential pardons

When a member of the clergy calls for mercy for undocumented immigrants it is “radical ideology.” When Trump pardons violent criminals who beat police officers it is “redemption.”

John Fea   |  January 22, 2025

Mike Johnson believes in “redemption.” Here is how he responded to Trump’s pardons and commutations of January 6th insurrectionists: Here’s the money quote: “It’s kind of my ethos, my world view, we believe in redemption, we believe in second chances….” […]

Other controversial presidential pardons in American history

John Fea   |  December 5, 2024

According to Joshua Zeitz, Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter Biden was less controversial than these presidential pardons: George Washington pardoned two whiskey rebels. Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederate officers. George H.W. Bush pardoned six men convicted in the Iran […]

On Joe Biden’s pardon of Hunter

John Fea   |  December 2, 2024

Jonathan Chait puts it well: It would be tempting, but unfair, to draw a simple equation between Joe Biden’s situational ethics and that of his successor. A willingness to evade the rule of law is the foundation of Donald Trump’s […]

The Author’s Corner with Frank W. Garmon Jr.

Rachel Petroziello   |  August 26, 2024

Frank W. Garmon Jr. is Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership and American Studies at Christopher Newport University. This interview is based on his new book, A Wonderful Career in Crime: Charles Cowlam’s Masquerades in the Civil War Era […]

My congressman, Scott Perry, asked for a presidential pardon after January 6th

John Fea   |  June 10, 2022

Here is Myah Ward at Politico: Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, as well as multiple other Republican lawmakers, contacted the White House in the weeks after Jan. 6, 2021, to seek presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn […]