So one of the last things Trump did was pardon a whole shitton of scumbags.

[conuly]

But not himself, because you can't do that.

Anyway, putting his self-serving pardons aside, I have a serious question about how pardons work. Theoretically, could an incoming president say "Look, we all know that the War on Drugs is both racist and bullshit, and also racist bullshit" and then grant a blanket pardon to everybody convicted of possession? Or would this president have to issue all the pardons individually?

Comments

[redbird]

If he wanted to do that sort of blanket pardon, he could assign someone to go through the court records. I think he could then sign something that was like, "I hereby pardon everyone who has been convicted of drug-related offenses, the list of names is below" where "below" was umpteen thousand sheets of paper listing names and possibly a little detail, e.g. "John Doe of Anytown, convicted on $date."