Congressional Democrats target Trump’s “pardon industrial complex”
House Democrats who lead the “End Corruption Caucus” have introduced legislation seeking to rein in what has been called the “pardon economy” that has flourished during President Trump’s second term, according to lawmakers and a copy of the bill.
On Wednesday, Reps. Mike Levin and Jason Crow unveiled the Abuse of the Pardon Prevention Act — a measure aimed at acts of clemency that raise possible conflicts of interest or could involve favors for the president’s allies and donors.
America has “a pardon industrial complex” where “you literally, for the highest dollar amount, can go and buy a pardon,” Levin said in an exclusive interview with CBS News this week.
“That is not how the Founders intended for this to work,” said Levin, a California Democrat. “The pardon power is intended to be used in cases of justice and mercy.”
The bill stands almost no chance of surviving Mr. Trump’s veto pen, yet it offers an early look at how Democrats, fresh off sweeping midterm wins, may use their new majorities to scrutinize Mr. Trump’s freewheeling use of the pardon power. A CBS News investigation found wealthy defendants have hired lobbyists and lawyers tied to Mr. Trump to press their cases with the White House. About 70% of his second-term clemency actions have bypassed the Justice Department’s pardon office — 92% counting Jan. 6 defendants.
The White House has said that anyone “spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money” and that there is “a robust pardon review process” that includes White House counsel, the Justice Department, White House “pardon czar” Alice Johnson, and Mr. Trump “as the final decider.”
“President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner and to suggest so otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious,” said White House Counsel Will Scharf.
The bill would direct the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate pardons that raise potential conflicts of interest. As examples, Levin pointed to Mr. Trump’s pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program, and reports that Alina Habba Mildon, while a Justice Department adviser, struck a deal with the family of a Venezuelan billionaire who was pardoned weeks later. Habba Mildon has denied any role in the pardon.
The bill would also make explicit that the president and vice president can be prosecuted for trading pardons for something of value, and require pardon recipients to disclose gifts to projects tied to the president, such as his library or the White House ballroom. And it would ban self-pardons — a power Mr. Trump told “60 Minutes” this month he believes he has, though he said he doesn’t expect to use it.
“No president should be able to abuse the pardon power,” Crow, a Colorado Democrat, told CBS News. “We cannot accept a two-tiered system of justice that treats the wealthy and well-connected differently than working people.”
Beyond the political obstacles, the bill could face legal hurdles, according to legal experts who spoke with CBS News.
Three legal experts — former Justice Department pardon attorney-adviser Samuel Morison, Josh Blackman of South Texas College of Law Houston and Brian Kalt of Michigan State University — all said key parts of the bill would likely run up against the president’s constitutional pardon power.
“The constitutional remedy for the misuse of the pardon power is impeachment and removal,” Morison said. “What you can’t do is exactly what this bill tries to do, which is regulate the exercise of the pardon power through legislation.”
Blackman said the bill’s “conflict of interest” standard is so broad it could make almost any controversial pardon the subject of a criminal investigation, from Mr. Trump’s actions to former President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter. “I think they’re trying to criminalize the political process,” he said.
Kalt, who has studied the idea of presidential self-pardons, says the bill’s ban on them is “purely symbolic.” If the president has that power, he said, “a statute cannot take it away,” and if he doesn’t, “the statute changes nothing.”
Levin maintained there is a path to legislate the pardon power without undermining the Constitution.
“If anything is running afoul of the Constitution, it’s the way this president is misusing the pardon power,” he said. “We’re going to use our power of the purse to ensure the independent investigation of every department.”
He said his concerns extend beyond Mr. Trump.
“I disagreed with certain pardons during the Biden years, and I disagreed with certain pardons during the Clinton years,” Levin said. “Every member of Congress that actually cares about the institution, cares about checks and balances, cares about the rule of law, cares about the Constitution of the United States, will want to see reforms to the pardon power.”
