Pardons

President Joe Biden granted 1,500 pardons in what was the largest single-day act of clemency by a US president back in January, on his final full day in office. But these were not the typical pardons since Biden did not actually sit down, uncap a fat Sharpie and draw out his signature. No: the pardons were granted with the autopen, and the Department of Justice and congressional Republicans have been investigating whether the former president was actually aware they were being signed. After seven months of crickets, Biden finally broke his silence on these accusations, last Thursday. He spoke to the New York Times, maintaining he "made every decision," and he did it "because there were a lot of them." The January 19 pardons did two things.

President Donald Trump’s pardoning blitz has dominated the headlines with reality-TV stars, a rapper and political allies all walking free from prison after he granted them clemency. But quietly in the office of the Justice Department’s pardon attorney – where all of the above appeals were processed – a much more significant and wide-reaching process of forgiveness is taking shape. Ed Martin, Trump loyalist and new pardon attorney, is preparing his team to review applications from people – a lot of people – with criminal convictions to have their gun rights restored. “The pardon staff has already been working at it, because we anticipate hundreds and hundreds of thousands of applicants,” Martin told the Wall Street Journal.

President Donald Trump is making quick work of his first week in office, signing a flurry of executive orders on everything ranging from the southern border to abolishing diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs for much of the federal workforce.Starting this week, Trump wants “radical and wasteful” DEI offices to be placed on paid leave, according to a memo issued by the Office of Personnel Management. “President Trump campaigned on ending the scourge of DEI from our federal government and returning America to a merit-based society,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said of the move.

The mood in Washington, at least in the quarters I frequented, has been almost giddy these past few days. I watched Donald Trump’s second inauguration ceremony from the snug fastness of a secure, undisclosed location close to the White House. Joining me were about 300 politically mature citizens. Some were young, some old; some male, some female; many walks of life were represented. There were periodic cheers during the address, beginning with Trump’s declaration of “a national emergency at our southern border. “All illegal entry will immediately be halted,” he said, “and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.” My comrades liked that.

I am on my way to Washington, DC for zero hour, which as I write is a scant twenty-four hours away.   In fact, I am going to celebrate two zero hours. Naturally, the first cause for celebration is the second inauguration of Donald Trump, an event that by my reckoning (and not mine alone) will mark the beginning of a new golden age for America. At the same moment, however, we have a second zero hour in which to rejoice: zero hour for the country’s principal zero, the departure of Joe Biden from the White House, power and anything resembling a public platform.

Granting a full pardon to Conrad Black is the first sensible thing that Donald Trump has done. Black is being depicted as a ‘fraudster’ by his detractors but I see something entirely different — a brave, fearless, and audacious intellect that has refused to truckle to the dictates of political correctness. When it comes to the verdicts against Black, as Matt Gurney observes in the National Post, Black’s adversaries never even stop to contemplate whether or not they were just. Ever since Trump was elected, I’ve been waiting for him to efface this lamentable stain on Black’s escutcheon. The surprising thing is not that he did it, but that it took Trump this long.