The question is simple, although its implications reach deep into the structure of the American constitutional order. Is the president’s pardon power confined to violations of federal statutes, or does it extend to state criminal offenses when the underlying conduct implicates the national interest? Many scholars assume the narrow view without argument. Yet the text of the Constitution, the early Supreme Court cases that interpreted it, and the long sweep of historical practice all point toward a broader understanding. This broader view, once understood, reveals a simple truth. The president’s pardon power was designed to cut across jurisdictional lines when the welfare of the nation requires it. The case of Tina Peters shows why that design matters today.
To see the point clearly, it helps to recall the bare constitutional text. Article II gives the president power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States except in cases of impeachment. The phrase appears straightforward, yet it is less restrictive than modern commentators suppose. It does not say for federal statutory crimes and nothing more. It does not list categories of offenses that fall outside the scope. It gives a power and identifies a single exception. That structure is important. When the framers wished to limit a power, they said so plainly. Here they chose a different route. They created a broad grant of authority and placed the sole constraint directly in the clause. A puzzled reader might ask whether the phrase offenses against the United States simply means violations of federal criminal law. But that interpretation reads back into the founding period a distinction that had not yet hardened. The young republic did not possess a large catalog of federal crimes. Many offenses that implicated the national interest would have been charged, if at all, under state law. Yet the framers still chose this language. The natural inference is that they aimed at something more general. An offense against the United States was any act that attacked the sovereignty or stability of the nation. The early Supreme Court read the clause this way.
Consider Ex parte Garland. The Court described the pardon power as unlimited except for impeachment. It said the power extended to every offense known to the law. This sweeping language does not fit the modern theory that limits clemency to federal statutory crimes. The Court did not adopt a cramped reading. Instead it emphasized that the pardon reaches the punishment and the guilt of the offender. When the president issues a full pardon nothing remains for another authority to punish. The Court affirmed this reasoning again in United States v. Klein. There it rejected a congressional attempt to limit the legal consequences of a presidential pardon. The Court saw the attempt as a direct assault on the constitutional prerogative of the Executive. A pardon blots out the offense. That is the phrase the Court used. A reader might wonder whether this means a state cannot prosecute the same conduct after a pardon. The reasoning of Garland and Klein strongly suggests that it cannot. To allow such punishment would preserve the offense in a different guise, which contradicts the central idea of a pardon’s effect.
Skeptical readers may ask whether these early cases silently presupposed a background limitation to federal crimes. But that interpretation is also difficult to support. Consider Ex parte Grossman. The issue there was whether the president could pardon a criminal contempt of court. Contempt was not a federal statutory offense. It was an offense against the authority of the federal courts. Yet the Court held that the president’s power covered it. The explanation rested on the ordinary meaning of offenses against the United States at the time of the founding. Any act that violated the sovereign authority of the nation counted. And because the federal courts represent that authority, an offense against them fell within the pardon power. The reasoning applies directly to modern conflicts between federal and state jurisdiction. If a state prosecution targets conduct that implicates a national interest, then a pardon may reach it because that conduct, considered at the appropriate level of abstraction, is an offense against the United States.
The historical record reinforces this interpretation. Presidents from Washington forward exercised the pardon power in ways that encompassed conduct chargeable under state law. The Whiskey Rebellion offers an early example. The rebellion involved violent acts that plainly violated Pennsylvania law. Washington nonetheless issued pardons that ended all prosecution. No state attempted to circumvent the pardons by filing its own charges. The pattern holds for later episodes. After the Civil War, presidents Lincoln and Johnson issued sweeping amnesties that covered acts of rebellion. These acts violated numerous state laws, including those on treason and property destruction. The pardons were treated as final and binding. No state attempted to prosecute a pardoned Confederate for the same underlying conduct.
A hesitant reader may wonder whether these examples simply rest on political necessity rather than constitutional interpretation. But necessity and interpretation are intertwined. The framers intended the pardon power to serve as a tool for national reconciliation. A power that stopped at the borders of federal statutory law would have been useless in the very scenarios they feared most. The Convention debates confirm this. The delegates discussed whether pardons for treason should require congressional approval. They decided against such limits because they wanted the president to act swiftly to defuse insurrections. That design presupposed an authority that cut across state lines and reached conduct that states could also punish. Otherwise, the power would fail in the moment when its use mattered most.
Modern practice further supports the broader view. When President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States arising from Watergate, no state tried to file charges for burglary or obstruction. Those crimes have state law counterparts. Yet the pardon was treated as comprehensive. Similarly, when President Trump pardoned Paul Manafort, New York attempted to prosecute him under state law for conduct already addressed in his federal convictions. The state courts rejected the prosecution. Their reasoning rested on double jeopardy principles, yet the practical effect was the same. The pardon closed the door. No state conviction followed. No state has ever secured a conviction for conduct that a president has fully pardoned. That is a striking fact. A curious reader might ask whether this is an accident of history. But the consistency across centuries suggests a deeper constitutional principle at work. States have understood that punishing conduct forgiven by a president risks violating the Supremacy Clause.
This brings us to Tina Peters. Her prosecution in Colorado followed a pattern that many conservatives now recognize. She believed that election integrity required scrutiny. She took steps that, in her view, protected the transparency of her county’s voting systems. For this, she received a nine-year sentence. The severity of the punishment raised immediate concerns that the prosecution was political rather than neutral. The U.S. Department of Justice itself intervened in her federal habeas appeal. It questioned whether her prosecution and sentencing were oriented more toward inflicting political pain than toward pursuing justice. That intervention was unusual. It signaled that something had gone wrong in Colorado.
President Trump called for her release. He described her as a brave and innocent patriot. He warned Colorado that the continued imprisonment of a political dissenter was intolerable in a constitutional republic. A reader might ask whether the president could directly pardon her if Colorado refused. Under the narrow theory of the pardon power, the answer would be no. Under the broader and historically grounded theory, the answer is yes. Tina Peters’ conduct, whatever one thinks of the details, occurred in the context of a presidential election. Election integrity is a national interest. It concerns the selection of the president, which is the focal point of the Constitution’s structural design. An offense tied to that process is an offense against the United States in the sense the framers understood. If so, a presidential pardon would reach it.
The objection that states possess their own sovereignty is correct but incomplete. Dual sovereignty has always been subject to the Supremacy Clause. When federal and state authority conflict, the federal authority prevails if it is validly exercised. A presidential pardon is a valid exercise of federal authority. The Supreme Court’s insistence that the pardon power cannot be fettered by outside actors indicates that states cannot limit its effect. A state cannot nullify a pardon by relabeling the same conduct as a state offense. To do so would violate the principle announced in Klein. It would also undermine the unity the framers sought to secure.
Tina Peters’ case would make an ideal test case for the Supreme Court. If Colorado attempted to block a presidential pardon, the conflict would present a clean constitutional question. The Court would need to decide whether the pardon power protects individuals whose conduct implicates national interests even when a state has filed charges. The historical evidence, the constitutional structure, and the early jurisprudence all point toward a single conclusion. The president’s power of mercy reaches such cases. It was designed to reach them. It is a power placed in the hands of the president alone because the nation sometimes needs a single actor who can cut through jurisdictional complexity and grant relief.
Some readers may feel a lingering discomfort. They may worry that allowing such pardons would erode state autonomy. But the framers understood that autonomy has limits. The national government must retain the capacity to protect the constitutional order itself. Elections for federal office sit at the center of that order. If states could punish individuals for actions related to these elections in ways that conflict with national policy, the coherence of the republic would fracture. Pardon power exists to prevent that outcome. It offers a safety valve when legal processes become tools of faction.
The deeper principle is simple. Mercy is a national function, not a state function. The president embodies the unity of the country. When he grants clemency for acts tied to the national interest, he restores equilibrium. Tina Peters stands as a symbol of why that equilibrium matters. Her prosecution raised serious questions about political retaliation. Her sentence was severe. Her conduct occurred in the charged context of a presidential election. Under the Constitution’s design, these are precisely the circumstances in which a president may intervene. And if Colorado objects, the Supreme Court should welcome the opportunity to clarify the scope of the pardon power once and for all.
If you enjoy my work, please subscribe: https://x.com/amuse.
Sponsored by the John Milton Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping independent journalists overcome formidable challenges in today’s media landscape and bring crucial stories to you.
READ NEXT: Can US Learn To Combat Drones Better Than It Did With IEDs?
I never want to hear the word “interoperated” again in regard to our Constitution. It says what it says. period!