Trump’s pardons are harming violent crime survivors | Johnny Olszewski

Donald Trump’s aggressive use of the presidential pardon power isn’t just controversial – it’s also stripping resources from victims of violent crime.

According to new reporting from the Trace, shared with the Guardian, the 117 pardons issued in Trump’s second term have erased at least $113m in fines and penalties that would otherwise have supported a fund for violent crime victims, along with domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers and child abuse treatment programs. Those programs are now being forced to do more with less.

The beneficiaries of these pardons tell their own story: white-collar offenders who stand to gain from a lucrative “pardon-shopping” industry, where lobbyists reportedly charge upwards of $1m to secure clemency for the wealthy and well-connected. Among them are crypto magnates and even Juan Orlando Hernández, the former Honduran president convicted of conspiring to import massive quantities of cocaine into the United States.

This isn’t mercy – it’s a transfer of costs from powerful offenders to vulnerable victims. Rather than a narrowly tailored tool to correct miscarriages of justice, the pardon has been perverted into a mechanism that rewards loyalty, wealth and proximity to power.

And Congress should not let it continue.

I am advancing a constitutional amendment – the Pardon Integrity Act – to restore accountability while preserving the pardon power’s essential role. I am pleased that my Republican colleague Don Bacon has joined me to lead the effort, reinforcing that this is and ought to be a bipartisan effort.

Our proposal is straightforward: when 20 members of the House and five senators agree that a pardon warrants scrutiny, Congress would be required to take a vote on its merits within 60 days. These votes would require a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers to overturn a pardon.

That is a deliberately high bar. It ensures that only the most egregious abuses are addressed.

Such abuses have been committed by members of both parties in ways that erode confidence in our system. Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother after a drug conviction. Joe Biden pardoned his son after gun- and tax-related convictions and also issued a number of pre-emptive pardons. All of these pardons were wrong, too.

The constitution features a robust system of checks and balances because the Framers understood that power, left unchecked, will be abused. Today, the pardon power remains a rare place where presidents act with unilateral authority.

Our amendment strengthens democracy. It preserves the opportunity to correct injustices in the application of the law, but in a way that provides greater transparency and a method to prevent clear abuses.

Amending the constitution is never easy. It requires broad consensus and sustained commitment. But some principles are worth that effort.

No one is above the law – not even a president’s friends – which makes this a fight worth having.

• Johnny Olszewski is a first-term Democratic congressman who represents Maryland’s second district after serving in the Maryland state legislature and as Baltimore county executive