Trump’s Final-Days Pardon Push Put Access Under a Harsh Light

On January 17, 2021, Donald Trump was still president, with three days left before the inauguration. That timing matters. The clemency activity around him was not a post-presidency footnote or a completed chapter. It was part of the final stretch of his administration, when pardon requests and commutation pitches were still being reviewed and discussed. The official Justice Department process for clemency starts with the Office of the Pardon Attorney. That office is the formal entry point for pardon and commutation applications and is meant to provide some structure around a presidential power that is otherwise broad. In ordinary practice, that process creates distance between applicants and the White House. In the final days of the Trump presidency, though, the scramble for clemency made that distance look thinner than usual. Reports on January 17 said Trump was meeting with aides, including Jared Kushner, to go over pardon requests as the administration raced toward its end. By then, the pardon process had become another example of how much weight proximity carried in Trump’s orbit. People with access to the right intermediaries had a better chance of getting their case in front of the president, even if the formal system still ran through Justice Department channels. That does not mean every request was improper, or that every rumor about who was trying to get a pardon can be verified. It does mean the final-days environment invited suspicion. The closer the administration got to January 20, the more the clemency process looked like a pressure test for a White House that often rewarded loyalty, personal ties, and political usefulness. The Constitution gives presidents wide pardon authority. But broad authority is not the same thing as a system that inspires confidence. When clemency discussions happen in a rush, through intermediaries, and under intense political strain, the public is left to wonder whether merit is doing the work or whether access is. That is why the late-term pardon push landed so hard. It was not just about which names might get approved. It was about what the whole episode said about the way power operated in Trump’s Washington. The closer people believed they had to be to get heard, the more the process itself started to look like a privilege system rather than a careful act of mercy.