Daily Herald opinion: A president's Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card: Isn't the Constitution's pardon power little more than an anachronistic remnant of the country's British heritage?

From the beginning, we were skeptical of President Joe Biden's frequent vows that he would not pardon his son Hunter for federal crimes. Really? What father is going to let his son go to prison when he has the power to stop it?

So we were not surprised when Biden broke his word. Merely disappointed in his duplicity, especially since subsequent news reports have revealed that inside the White House, Biden had been discussing the possibility of a pardon even as he was adamantly ruling one out in his public statements.

Unfortunately, politicians sometimes — or perhaps that should be, frequently — lie. Certainly, virtually all politicians spin.

But more to the point, almost all presidents pardon. Our research can find only two who never did. Barack Obama pardoned a modern-day record 1,927.

Sometimes the argument for pardons is defensible. But so often, the pardons are cynical, even corrupt. Favors masquerading as mercy. Payback pretending to be justice.

During his first term, Donald Trump pardoned or commuted sentences for comparatively few. But when he did grant his mercy, he often granted it for friends and political allies. Among them: his former campaign manager Paul Manafort; former advisers Steve Bannon and George Papadopoulos; former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn; longtime associate Roger Stone; his daughter's father-in-law Charles Kushner; political operative Paul Erickson; former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee Elliott Broidy; Albert Pirro Jr., the ex-husband of Fox News celebrity Jeannine Pirro; conspiracy theorist Dinesh D'Souza; former Congressmen Duke Cunningham and Rick Renzi; and George Gilmore, a county GOP chairman in New Jersey.

Some of the Trump pardons were spread around locally — to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a onetime Celebrity Apprentice contestant; Mettawa Mayor Casey Urlacher; and Glenbrook North grad Kenneth Kurson, a former employee of Trump's son-in-law and onetime consultant with Rudy Giuliani.

Unfortunately, the presidential pardon spree may just be beginning. On the one hand, Biden is said to be considering blanket pardons for an assortment of Trump critics and prosecutors that some fear may come under the wrath of the next administration's attorney general. On the other, Trump has promised widespread pardons for many of those duly convicted of taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol.

When is all of this going to stop?

The president's power to grant pardons is provided by the Constitution, and as such, it is difficult to refine. If checks are to be placed on the power, for the most part they would have to be imposed by an amendment and neither party seems eager to push for that.

Some scholars have argued the power is limited and cannot be used for corrupt purposes, but in practice, there are few examples of restraint. All the Constitution says is that pardons only can be used for federal crimes and cannot be used to defend against impeachment.

But let us end with some key questions:

What is to stop a president from engaging in illegal activity and silencing compatriots with promises of pardons?

While it is natural that a president would want to pardon his son, why should he get to do so? Why should a president's son be above the law when no other parent's son is?