This article describes how President Donald Trump transformed the federal pardon process from a fairly routine bureaucratic mechanism operated by the Office of the Pardon Attorney into a series of personally negotiated and theatrically performed acts. It considers how Trump’s practices have rendered pardoning on the federal level democratically suspect and suggests a mechanism for re-invigorating pardoning as a democratic process.

Keywords:
Pardoning, clemency, President Donald Trump, theatricality, democracy, clemency advisory board, lay participation, corruption
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2021
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