NationalJournal.com's David Herbert recently interviewed Margaret Colgate Love, former U.S. pardon attorney and a lawyer specializing in executive clemency, about the presidential pardon power's misuse and disuse over the last 25 years and how Barack Obama could revive the tradition of executive privilege.
Hear Love on presidential pardons and read the complete interview here. Edited excerpts follow.
NJ: Considering the bad rap the pardon process has developed in the last few decades, how would you advise Obama to go about reviving the pardon tradition?
Love: I would advise him to start pardoning pretty much right away. Give pardon to little people who are not particularly controversial, just ordinary people who have cases that fit within the Justice Department guidelines. I would also recommend that he do some grants that show some of the problems that people face in trying to rehabilitate themselves coming back to the community.NJ: In more controversial cases where you have groups that feel very strongly one way or the other, how do you minimize their role so that they don't overly politicize a pardon?
Love: Well, the pardon power is necessarily political. I mean, the only check on it is public opinion. So it's necessarily political in that good sense that the president is really acting as the conscience of the community. So if he can't sell his message to the public, then he's just going to have to do what he has to do.
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