Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden has distinguished himself in the past few weeks with his indiscriminate use of the president’s clemency powers. The nation’s justice system suffers because of it.

Biden left office after commuting the death sentences of dozens of the nation’s worst criminals. He followed up that indignation with pre-emptive pardons for his siblings and their spouses and various government officials to shield them from potential Trump administration investigations. Previously, he had signaled his willingness to ignore convention when in early December he reversed his vow not to pardon his beleaguered son Hunter and instead granted him blanket clemency for any illegal activity he may have engaged in since 2014.

The outgoing president’s moves were roundly criticized by Trump and even by some Democrats.

Biden’s pardons show “a lack of faith in the fairness of the criminal justice system,” Jeffrey Crouch, an American University professor who authored “The Presidential Pardon Power,” told The Wall Street Journal. “But even more disturbing, it makes it easier for future president to follow.”

It didn’t take long to see that dynamic play out. Trump’s concern for his predecessor’s questionable use of pardons didn’t extend to his own administration. During his first few days in office, the new president granted pardons and commutations to more than 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack in 2021. Trump and Vice President JD Vance had previously hinted that they favor action on a case-by-case basis, but such discretion apparently became a casualty of an indifference to civic norms.

Trump might have been on firmer ground had he weighed each Jan. 6 defendant’s conduct and then acted. There is a big difference between granting clemency to nonviolent protesters who were swept up in the moment and have realized the error of the ways and those who acted with an intent to cause harm and destruction and to confront law enforcement. Excusing the latter is not defensible.

Article II of the Constitution gives the president the “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” An 1866 Supreme Court decision in a case involving an Andrew Johnson pardon of a Confederate attorney held that Congress has limited ability to check the president’s pardon authority. The clemency power “extends to every offence known to the law and may be exercised at any time after its commission,” the majority ruled.

With such vast power comes vast responsibility. A handful of previous presidents have triggered controversy with their clemency decisions. But Biden and Trump have stretched tradition to the breaking point with their politically tinged actions. Americans should hope that, moving forward, future presidents don’t continue to push the limits and instead exercise a modicum of restraint by using their pardon power in more traditional fashion.

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