Alan Dershowitz, Harvard law professor emeritus, told Newsmax on Tuesday that while former President Joe Biden's preemptive pardons won't benefit his family in any "material way," they do set a precedent for President Donald Trump to use the presidential clemency power "very broadly."
Dershowitz joined "National Report" to discuss Biden's 11th-hour pardons to his family — as well as Jan. 6 select committee members — prior to leaving office on Monday.
"Well, this certainly opens up, President Trump, the ability to use the pardon power very broadly. He now has a precedent, much the way Biden had a precedent with President [Gerald] Ford," when he preemptively pardoned Richard Nixon in September 1974, Dershowitz said.
Regarding the clemency power itself, Dershowitz said that "nobody knows what the constitutional limitations, if any, are on the president."
"Nobody knows what the framers had in mind. They borrowed that from the English experience of the king," Dershowitz added. "But under the Constitution, the president has unlimited power, and I suspect President Trump will use it for good and for good purposes, and will pardon people who didn't deserve to be prosecuted."
As for Biden's myriad pardons on the way out of office, "there's no reason to believe he can't do a preemptive pardon," Dershowitz said.
"I've never before heard of preemptive pardons for people who haven't even been subjected to any investigation," he added. "So it's not clear to me this is going to benefit the Biden family in any material way. I don't think they ever would have been prosecuted."
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Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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