Presidential Pardon in a World Gone Mad

So let us begin with the “world gone mad” part. David Daleiden, the man behind the Planned Parenthood sting videos, has been indicted by a grand jury in Texas. He made the mistake of gathering secret footage of Planned Parenthood doing appalling things with the bodies of little boys and girls. If he had only had the good sense to run a sting operation on the executives of Tyson Foods, demonstrating abusive treatment of chickens, he could be writing his acceptance speech for the Pulitzer now.

This last August, when the videos were first dropping, I argued that every presidential candidate needed to be asked whether or not he or she would commit to awarding David Daleiden the Medal of Freedom. Sometime after that I had the opportunity to ask Mike Huckabee if he would be willing to do that, and he said it was a good idea. That question is still a good one, is obviously necessary, and needs to be renewed.

But now the stakes are raised — because Planned Parenthood has opted for the bang instead of the whimper — and so we have the perfect opportunity to call and raise them a couple hundred. The question for each of the Republican candidates over the course of this next week needs to be this one. “If elected, would you be willing to sign a presidential pardon for David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt?”

Before anybody rushes to comment, I am perfectly aware of the fact that David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were indicted in Texas, and that the power of presidential pardons only applies at the federal level. But the question is still relevant. Planned Parenthood has sued the Center for Medical Progress in federal court in California. And with regard to the Texas case, cases at the state level can easily wend their way into the federal system on appeal. So the question assumes the right of a president to pardon at a certain level, and asks for a commitment to pardon the instant it reaches that level.

If ever there was a perfect opportunity to ask this question, it is now. The cluster of remaining candidates are in a hot campaign in Iowa. Iowa is an evangelical stronghold, and all the candidates are going to be there a lot, in multiple venues, for the next week. There will be many opportunities to ask this question. And if any one of the candidates answers the question well, and also directly, there will be a resultant need for reporters to ask the other candidates as well. Some will promise from principle and others from opportunism. But the point is to get them to promise it.

Make no mistake. A presidential pardon for Daleiden and Merritt would be a big deal, an instance of smashmouth presidential politics. Cruz would be ideally suited to address it. It really would be news, and here is why. Such a promise would be made before the trial, which means that a candidate for president would be implicitly acknowledging that our court system has been thoroughly corrupted.

This is because if Daleiden and Merritt were to be convicted, it is manifestly obvious that they would be political prisoners. They would have been convicted of buying human organs, while Planned Parenthood was simultaneously exonerated from the charge of selling them. Heads I win, tails you lose.

There is an added bonus. Such a question would also create  the prospect of Hillary Clinton denouncing the idea, which would create the chance of asking her whether presidential pardons needed to be reserved for cases like that of Marc Rich.