Pelosi Plans Bill to Limit Pardons in Wake of Trump's Roger Stone Commutation
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that in the wake of President Donald Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s criminal sentence, she plans to support a bill limiting the ability of presidents to take such actions.
“President Trump’s decision to commute the sentence of top campaign adviser Roger Stone, who could directly implicate him in criminal misconduct, is an act of staggering corruption,” Pelosi said in a statement on Saturday.
Stone had been sentenced to more than three years in prison for witness tampering and lying to Congress. He’d openly lobbied for a pardon or commutation from Trump by touting that he had refused to cooperate with investigators looking into possible wrongdoing by the president.
“Congress will take action to prevent this type of brazen wrongdoing. Legislation is needed to ensure that no president can pardon or commute the sentence of an individual who is engaged in a cover-up campaign to shield that President from criminal prosecution,” Pelosi said.
A bill limiting the president’s powers of pardon and commutation would have no chance of becoming law as long as Republicans control the Senate and Trump remains in the White House.
The bill would also likely face legal challenges were it to become law.
Speaker Pelosi at the press conference.
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