# Could the POTUS pardon every single felon with "the stroke of a pen" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 24, 2015, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458 "2015-04-24T17:55:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/41 "2015-04-26T02:09:26Z")
> [@Donnerwetter](#): > > Generally speaking, is there a mechanism in the United States government to prevent the President from doing something really crazy? I remember reading a story about Richard Nixon’s Secretary of Defense advising the senior leadership of the US military to contact him (i. e. the Secretary of Defense) in case they were to receive an unusual order by the President. I don’t know if this is apocryphal. Woodward and Bernstein wrote about that in _The Final Days_, IIRC; the SECDEF in question was James Schlesinger: [James R. Schlesinger - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Schlesinger) ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/42 "2015-04-26T02:18:58Z")
A nuclear launch requires authorization from the President and the Sec of Defense. Partially to make it harder to fake a launch order, and partly to ensure an insane Prez (or drunk Nixon) has to justify himself to someone else before he can end the world. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/43 "2015-04-26T02:28:17Z")
I’m not sure if that was true in August 1974. Here’s more on the watch-out-for-crazy-Nixon-orders story: \ ***August 8-9, 1974: Unfounded Rumors Surround Nixon Exit** A host of tips, leaks, rumors, and wild speculations swirl around President Nixon’s resignation from the presidency and upcoming departure from the White House… Another one, more worrying, has Defense Secretary James Schlesinger informing military commanders not to take orders from the West Wing in case a drunken, suicidally paranoid Nixon refused to leave or ordered a nuclear strike. Vice President Ford’s press secretary, Jerald terHorst, assures reporters that none of the rumors are true… \*\*August 22, 1974: Pentagon, Joint Chiefs ‘Kept Watch’ on Nixon to Prevent Coup Attempt, Newspaper Reports \*\*The Washington Post prints a small, almost-buried story entitled “Pentagon Kept Watch on Military.” The relatively innocuous headline conceals a potentially explosive charge—that during the final days of the Nixon administration, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and the Joint Chiefs of Staff had “kept a close watch to make certain that no orders were given to military units outside the normal chain of command.” The article, careful in its word choices, says the extraordinary alert was “based on hypothetical situations that could arise during a period when President Nixon’s hold on the presidency was not clear.… Specifically, there was concern that an order could go to a military unit outside the chain of command for some sort of action against Congress during the time between a House impeachment and a Senate trial on the impeachment charge.” Pentagon sources say no one has any evidence that any such action was being contemplated, but steps were taken to ensure that no military commander would take an order from the White House or anywhere else that did not come through military channels. The implication is clear: Pentagon officials worried that Nixon might use certain elements of the military to stage some sort of coup. Schlesinger gives the story “legs” by issuing the following non-denial: “I did assure myself that there would be no question about the proper constitutional and legislated chain of command, and there never was any question.” \* From here: [http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=nixon\_and\_watergate\_tmln&nixon\_and\_watergate\_tmln\_nixon\_resignation\_and\_pardon=nixon\_and\_watergate\_tmln\_nixon\_resignation](http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=nixon_and_watergate_tmln&nixon_and_watergate_tmln_nixon_resignation_and_pardon=nixon_and_watergate_tmln_nixon_resignation) ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/44 "2015-04-26T18:05:13Z")
Although it’s hard to imagine Ford doing such a thing, Schlesinger and the Joint Chiefs might have been worried about FORD trying to issue commands to the military as well, and some kind of constitutional crisis over that–the Vice President is NOT in the chain of command, which is why it was so momentous when Cheney issued the shootdown order on 9/11. (The Joint Chiefs are no longer in the chain of command either, but were in 1974.) As for the OP, Presidents regularly generate outrage with pardons and commutations. Bush 1 pardoned the Iran-Contra plotters, Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, and Bush 2 commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence. This “stroke of the pen” business strikes me as something emanating from the fringes about how the Kenyan Usurper is going to unleash all the black murderers and rapists when he leaves office; but I’m not going to investigate. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/45 "2015-04-26T19:42:12Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Well, yes. We already clarified that he can only pardon federal offenses (i.e., “crimes against the United States”), not state ones. If he tried to pardon someone for a state crime (which he wouldn’t, because he’s not an idiot), the governor of that state would just tell him no. Well if he did so, then if the prisoners in question ask to be released and the state refuses, they might challenge said refusal in Court. Litigation might reach the Suprme Court and they may rule that the words in the constitution mean “all crimes” not just federal ones, because they interpret crimes against the state as being crimes against the U.S. as well, in which case, he would now have the power go pardon _in totem_ everywhere. Of course the chance of that happening are less than the chances of the Sun colliding with another star next week, but there is a way that under the current system he could pardon all prisoners, sans a constitutional amendment. ---
**Author:** ![MindsEye\_Watering](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindseye_watering/32/3619_2.png) [@MindsEye\_Watering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MindsEye_Watering)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/46 "2015-04-26T20:24:24Z")
> [@Potestas](#): > > hes already screwed up America enough… Wow…he has? How? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/47 "2015-04-26T20:39:19Z")
> [@MindsEye\_Watering](#): > > Wow…he has? > > How? **Moderator Note** **Mind’s Eye, Watering** , the poster in question has already received a warning for this remark. There is no need for you to address it further. (That’s pretty much the point of prohibiting these kinds of remarks.) Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/48 "2015-04-26T20:54:13Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > A nuclear launch requires authorization from the President and the Sec of Defense. Partially to make it harder to fake a launch order, and partly to ensure an insane Prez (or drunk Nixon) has to justify himself to someone else before he can end the world. Though POTUS could simply fire a SecDef who refused to go along and keep doing through the DoD’s chain of command until he got an Acting SecDef who agreed with his orders, but this would take time and in the interim one assumes VPOTUS would be assembling the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2015, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/49 "2015-04-28T03:49:07Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > I suspect that if the President tried to set in motion a plan to pardon all federal prisoners, the Vice President and his cabinet would evoke the [25th Amendment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution) and declare him unfit to carry out his duties. The Vice President would then assume control of the government while impeachment proceedings were carried out to remove the President from office. Close, but no cigar: being a nutbar is not grounds for impeachment. That’s what the 25th Amendment is for. But you are right that it would ultimately be settled by Congress, unless the President did not challenge his removal from office. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/50 "2015-04-29T20:57:08Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Might not deter some presidents. This. The concept of a ‘Presidential Legacy’ is something that soothes Presidential Utopians, but is something that doesn’t affect any ex-President quite so much as the income from books, speeches, etc… Assuming that some dirty dealing was done, there was a profit motive involved, so, one can infer that legacy is subordinate to cold, hard cash. Simply take a look at Clinton’s midnight pardons. (I can’t remember any others, except for Ford and Carter-both of whom had no serious legacy to be tarnished, by that time). WTF remembers those now? He’s richer than Croesus, and Dems still deify him, and some Pubs can tolerate him. His legacy? Who cares. What’s your personal legacy? Would you trade it for 500K? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/51 "2015-04-29T21:02:53Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > Simply take a look at Clinton’s midnight pardons. WTF remembers those now The same people who remember Dubya’s, or Poppy’s, or Ronnie’s, or Jimmy’s … [The numbers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy): > [@](#): > > While Clinton pardoned a large number (450) of people compared with his immediate predecessor Republican George H. W. Bush, who only pardoned 75, the number of people pardoned by Clinton was comparable to Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Jimmy Carter, who pardoned 406 and 566 respectively Dubya did 189. But how many of any of those got scandalmongered? ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/52 "2015-04-30T00:52:55Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The same people who remember Dubya’s, or Poppy’s, or Ronnie’s, or Jimmy’s … > > [The numbers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy): Dubya did 189. But how many of any of those got scandalmongered? Who gives a shit? None of them are in the thoughts of the Presidents; least of all, in re: their “Presidential Legacy”. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2015, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/53 "2015-04-30T17:25:19Z")
I’m sure almost nobody in the general public remembers anything about presidential pardons. But historians (and some on the left) remember Bush 1 pardoning the Iran-Contra guys. Some on the right are still frothing about some of the Clinton pardons. And I suspect more still recall the Scooter Libby commutation, which will surely be a small part of any complete history of the Bush 2 presidency. Those were all in my lifetime of political awareness. Other than Carter pardoning draft dodgers, couldn’t tell you a thing about any others. However, I venture to say that pardoning ALL felons in the US would be remembered by pretty much everyone for a good long time; and if your eye was on making a lot of money post-presidency, that might not be the best way to ensure it. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/54 "2015-05-03T05:32:31Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The same people who remember Dubya’s, or Poppy’s, or Ronnie’s, or Jimmy’s … > > [The numbers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy): Dubya did 189. But how many of any of those got scandalmongered? Poppy???😕 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458/55 "2015-05-03T12:24:17Z")
From context, it’s clear that **ElvisL1ves** is referring to George Bush _pere_, the 41st President of the United States. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-potus-pardon-every-single-felon-with-the-stroke-of-a-pen/718458.md?page=2)