The Department of Justice (DOJ) official in charge of evaluating potential candidates for presidential pardons is accusing President Donald Trump – her former boss – of turning the pardon process on its head.
In a Friday op-ed for the New York Times, Liz Oyer, who was the DOJ's pardon attorney under former President Joe Biden and for the first two months of Trump's second administration, condemned Trump's approach to the clemency process and accused him of abusing his Article II powers. Oyer observed that Trump is using the "unfettered executive power" to grant pardons in a way that has served to "degrade, corrupt and politicize the justice system."
Oyer recalled how the start of her tenure in the Trump administration involved being blindsided by the president's decision to pardon the approximately 1,500 defendants prosecuted and convicted for crimes relating to the January 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol. She reminded readers that some January 6 defendants were also "charged with or convicted of offenses involving sexual exploitationof children, threatsagainst public officials and even a plot to kill federal employees."
"But instead of forcefully confronting the corrosive effects of Mr. Trump’s reckless pardoning, congressional Republicans have chosen to focus on investigating the pardons issued by his predecessor," Oyer wrote.
After just two months on the job, Oyer was eventually replaced by Ed Martin, who is a longtime Republican political operative and Trump loyalist who was once even listed as the counsel of record for one of the January 6 defendants whose pardon he approved. His motto became "no MAGA left behind" and he quickly converted the DOJ's pardon office into a vehicle for granting rapid clemency to far-right criminals. She lamented that pardons under Trump has become explicitly political and called for order to be restored to the clemency process.
"Our elected representatives are doing us no favors when they proceed as if what we are witnessing is typical or acceptable," she wrote. "Americans deserve an impartial assessment of all the misuses of the pardon power that we have seen from presidents of both parties."
"This isn’t — shouldn’t be, at least — a partisan concern," Oyer added. "It is an issue that should alarm anyone who cares to live in a safe, fair and free country."
Click here to read Oyer's full op-ed in the New York Times (subscription required).