The naked use of executive power completely bypassed the DOJ clemency review process referenced above (Love, 2007, 5).

Has a president reached the apogee when he reaches into the judicial process itself (while it is motion no less) and run roughshod over the very clemency review process that is in place within his own DOJ? While not a violation of the letter of the law, it certainly is not in the spirit of it. According to an article by Mary Colgate Love in the Federal Sentencing Reporter, she remarks that "while the Framers did not subscribe to a notion of pardon as

a species of high-level gift-giving...For them, pardon was a necessary and functional part of their carefully calibrated system of checks and balances...pardon was a necessary and functional part of their care-fully calibrated system of checks and balances...(ibid)." What she further points out is a little remembered fact that...
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