Category: Pardons
Trump’s pardons expose the left’s vast lawfare machine
On Sunday night, the Oversight Project announced the culmination of a long effort: President Trump’s pardons for the so-called “alternate electors” and their affiliates who faced state-level prosecution for their role in the 2020 election.
Credit belongs to President Trump and Pardon Attorney Ed Martin for seeing this process through — and for having the political will and moral memory to leave no MAGA supporter behind. These pardons are the result of over a year of focused work by the Oversight Project. And because the corporate left-wing media has predictably denounced them for their politics, prudence, and legal effect, it’s worth explaining the pardons’ justification and impact.
Participation in a constitutional process is not a crime. Operation Arctic Frost and its imitators will not define the future of American justice. These pardons will.
First, terminology matters. “Contingent electors” is the correct phrase. “Alternate electors” or “fake electors” are loaded terms invented by the press to imply criminality.
In reality, these electors prepared slates to be submitted to Congress while investigations and legal challenges into the 2020 presidential election were still pending. Their purpose was simple: to preserve flexibility should fraud or irregularities be confirmed.
The 2020 election was unlike any in modern history. Under the pretext of COVID-19, officials across multiple states expanded mail-in voting without the safeguards required by law. Signature verification, chain-of-custody rules, and registration requirements were ignored. Courts refused to hear evidence, dismissing cases on procedural grounds rather than the merits.
And somehow, we were told that the vice president and Congress — bodies that have historically played a role in adjudicating electoral disputes — no longer had any role to play. As a result, President Biden’s victory will forever carry an asterisk in the history books.
Debunking modern myths
The notion that elections can only be challenged in court is a modern myth. Since the founding, Congress has played a central role in resolving disputed elections, as have state legislatures empowered to ensure the integrity of their own processes — including, when necessary, selecting electors directly.
The list of precedents is long.
- In 1797, John Adams, as president of the Senate, allowed time for objections to Vermont’s votes.
- In 1801, Thomas Jefferson counted Georgia’s contested votes — for himself.
- In 1857, a snowstorm kept Wisconsin’s electors from voting, but their ballots were counted anyway.
- In 1876, during the Hayes-Tilden standoff, Congress created a commission to adjudicate dueling slates from four states.
- In 1961, Hawaii submitted a contingent slate while its results were still being certified.
- In 2005, both chambers of Congress debated and ultimately rejected objections to Ohio’s votes.
- And as recently as 2017, multiple House members objected to electors from several states, though they lacked Senate co-sponsors.
This long record makes clear that the use of contingent electors is not criminal — it is, in fact, perfectly constitutional.
From constitutional to criminal
So why are good-faith contingent electors from 2020 now facing state prosecutions and financial ruin? The answer is weaponization.
During the Biden years, the federal government, blue-state prosecutors, and activist networks have coordinated to transform lawful political activity into criminal conduct. The same machinery that pursued President Trump through endless investigations was turned on ordinary citizens whose only “crime” was preserving constitutional options.
Operation Arctic Frost — the campaign of “map, harass, and isolate” tactics aimed at Trump allies — illustrates this perfectly. It was designed to intimidate lawyers, donors, and officials who supported Trump’s legal challenges, freezing them out of professional and financial life. The contingent electors were swept up in that same apparatus: coordinated prosecutions, media smears, and punitive lawfare intended to silence dissent.
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Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
From Fani Willis’ politically motivated prosecutions in Georgia to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s efforts to organize partisan coalitions against perceived “threats,” the coordination has been unmistakable. Government, activist, and media arms all moved together with one goal: to erase the America First movement and criminalize its constitutional exercise of power.
That is the true definition of weaponization — using the law to destroy political opposition.
The legal case for Trump’s pardons
Critics claim the president cannot pardon state-level offenses. But that view collapses under constitutional scrutiny. States cannot prosecute conduct that falls under federal authority once it has been pardoned.
The selection of electors is a hybrid function — both state and federal — but the contingent electors acted in service of a federal purpose: the certification of the presidency. By issuing these pardons, the federal government has declared that these individuals acted lawfully, in good faith, and consistent with historic precedent.
If the federal government deems their actions lawful, how can states claim they committed crimes? That’s a question any fair court — or any fair jury — should be able to answer easily.
If these pardons are treated honestly, the state cases will collapse. More important, this should reassure every American committed to election integrity that defending the Constitution will never again be treated as a criminal act.
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Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Now what?
The toll on those targeted has been immense. Many have endured years of legal harassment, public vilification, and financial ruin simply for acting according to their constitutional duty.
The Oversight Project is exploring every possible avenue to secure restitution for those harmed — whether through private support, legislative action, or further executive remedies. These pardons mark the first step in correcting the record and restoring faith in the justice system.
They are not merely acts of mercy; they are acts of correction. They affirm that Americans who act to preserve election integrity, often at great personal cost, were right to do so.
The message is clear: Participation in a constitutional process is not a crime. Operation Arctic Frost and its imitators will not define the future of American justice. These pardons will.
‘No MAGA left behind’: Trump pardons Giuliani, Powell, others involved in 2020 alternate electors case
President Donald Trump has announced “full, complete, and unconditional” pardons for those allegedly involved in the effort to arrange an alternate slate of electors and submit certificates of ascertainment indicating that Trump won the 2020 Electoral College vote in critical states.
According to the presidential proclamation shared by U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin early Monday morning in response to an older post stating, “No MAGA left behind,” pardons were also granted to individuals who attempted “to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities in the 2020 Presidential Election.”
‘President Trump is putting an end to the Biden regime’s communist tactics once and for all.’
Martin signaled that Trump, unlike his predecessor, was directly involved in the pardon process, noting that the signatures on the pardons were “wet (not autopen),” meaning they were hand-signed.
Among the dozens of names identified in the non-exhaustive list of those pardoned is Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, and John Eastman, a lawyer who advised Trump’s 2020 campaign. Trump did not pardon himself.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Blaze News, “These great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden administration for challenging an election, which is the cornerstone of democracy.”
“Getting prosecuted for challenging results is something that happens in communist Venezuela, not the United States of America, and President Trump is putting an end to the Biden regime’s communist tactics once and for all,” added Leavitt.
RELATED: Inside the Dem-hatched scheme to destroy attorneys who supported Trump
Valerie Plesch/Washington Post/Getty Images
The proclamation notes at the outset that these pardons serve to end “a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election and continues the process of national reconciliation.”
A White House official told Blaze News that “Americans in seven states acted to preserve alternate slates of electors as a result of major issues with the 2020 election. They took action, while exercising their First Amendment rights, that the system was designed to let them do: preserve the right of the American people to seek redress including through our courts and federal and state legislative processes.”
The official likened the actions allegedly taken by some of those pardoned to those taken by “the famous 1960 Hawaiian alternate electors for President Kennedy, who were never prosecuted or even questioned.”
“The alternate electors were involved in a purely federal constitutional proceeding before Congress. Under long-established law, states have no jurisdiction with respect to any alleged wrongdoing associated with a federal proceeding,” added the official.
‘I wish the pardon would terminate the lawfare totally.’
Although providing a clean slate and shield where federal charges are concerned, the pardons are largely symbolic, as they are unlikely to help those facing state-level prosecutions — such as those defendants facing charges in Nevada, those embroiled in the so-called “fake electors” case in Arizona’s Maricopa County, and those who recently lost their appeal to move their Georgia case to federal court.
Jeff Clark, the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Trump Office of Management and Budget, who is among those pardoned, expressed gratitude to the president but stressed that his legal battle is far from over.
“I wish the pardon would terminate the lawfare totally — and under SCOTUS’s venerable Ex Parte Garland decision, it certainly should. But zooming in on the DC Office of Disciplinary Counsel, we expect the leader of that office not to drop his case,” wrote Clark.
“I wish I could be declaring this legal nonsense over for good — a pardon should totally and abruptly kill off these federal bar and Georgia-federal attacks on me and many others.”
Martin noted in a Monday-morning X post that when he started in his current role, “POTUS encouraged us to look at two categories of Americans especially: First, those who needed and deserved clemency, especially long serving inmates who are ready to be released. Second, he wanted us to look at those people who had been targeted by the Biden administration. The targeted is a huge group of Americans.”
The pardon attorney indicated that “one group that jumped up right away” was the “alternate electors and their affiliates who were targeted by Jack Smith and others.”
The pardons come just days after Trump approved a pardon for three-time World Series champion Darryl Strawberry and months after the president pardoned approximately 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants.
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DOJ pardon attorney doubts validity of Biden autopen pardons as nullification campaign picks up steam
The campaign to throw out the Biden-era pardons for Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members of the Biden clan, former members of the House Jan. 6 select committee, and other controversial figures appears to be gaining momentum — and the Office of the Pardon Attorney made clear this week that it’s onboard.
The House Oversight Committee alleged in its damning 100-page report on Tuesday that senior Biden staffers not only worked desperately to conceal the former president’s rapid mental deterioration but usurped his authority with the help of the presidential autopen — a machine used to affix Biden’s signature to a host of controversial executive actions and pardons.
‘In theory, a court invalidation could result in restoration of penalties.’
“As President Biden was losing command of himself throughout his time in office, his executive actions — especially pardons, of which there are many — cannot all be deemed his own,” said the report. “The authority to grant pardons is not provided to the president’s inner circle. Nor can it be delegated to particular staff when a president’s competency is in question.”
Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) concluded that unauthorized executive actions signed by autopen were “null and void,” then asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to review the validity of all executive actions taken during Biden’s time in office.
Bondi confirmed on Tuesday that a review of the autopen use for pardons during the Biden era is underway.
Ed Martin, the U.S. pardon attorney at the DOJ, suggested in a letter on Monday to Comer that his investigation into the matter has turned up “disturbing findings” such that his office “cannot support the validity and ongoing legal effect of pardons and commutations issued during the Biden administration without further examination.”
In the letter obtained by CNN, Martin suggested that Biden’s admission to the New York Times that he “did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people” by itself “seems to raise serious questions of whether those commutations are valid.”
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Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Martin indicated that doubt over the validity of the commutations is further compounded by the suggestion in former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer’s communications with the Biden White House that the autopenned commutations issued on Jan. 17 in the former president’s name were legally flawed.
The pardon attorney raised other “defects” concerning the pardon process, particularly in the final weeks of the administration.
“My office cannot support the validity of AutoPen pardons for individuals such as Anthony Fauci, Adam Schiff, Mark Milley, and many more without further examination and fact-finding,” wrote Martin. “In my tenure here, I have not seen any evidence supporting the theory that President Biden was personally aware and authorized these AutoPen’d pardons.”
Martin, who alluded to a court ultimately weighing in on the validity of the pardons, told Comer, “If these pardons or commutations are challenged in any way, I recognize serious difficulties in defending them.”
The Oversight Committee similarly foreshadowed a court voiding the pardons in its report, stating that “the Constitution is clear: ‘The President shall … have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States.'”
The committee further quoted from a recent essay by constitutional scholar Philip Hamburger, a professor at Columbia Law School, which concluded, “The history confirms that the Constitution’s location of the pardon power is significant. The president must make the decisions, and the courts can hold pardons void if the decisions are made by others.”
While the nullification campaign’s success in the courts could spell disaster for Fauci, Milley, and others, some scholars have cast doubt on the likelihood of that outcome.
When asked whether the pardonees’ convictions and legal vulnerabilities would be fully restored should their pardons be ruled invalid, Jeremy Paul, a professor of law at Northeastern University School of Law, told Blaze News, “In theory, a court invalidation could result in restoration of penalties. I see this as extremely unlikely.”
“If the DOJ attempted to impose punishment upon the affected individuals, the individuals would raise the pardons as a defense in federal court,” continued Paul. “Lower courts would issue rulings. The case could end up in the Supreme Court but that Court would not be required to hear the case.”
Paul expressed doubt about whether the pardons could be invalidated in the first place, stating, “Unless evidence emerges that DOJ officials granted pardons in express opposition to President Biden’s wishes, which seems highly unlikely, I cannot see any basis on which pardons could be deemed invalid.”
Bernadette Meyler, a Stanford Law School professor, suggested to CNN that one way to go about trying to void a pardon would be for Attorney General Bondi to “sue for a declaratory judgment that the pardons were invalid because of some form of impropriety in the signing of them, or in the giving of the pardon.”
Blaze News has reached out to the Office of the Pardon Attorney for comment.
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