The biggest pardon of all

By Rod Anderson, CP Cartoonist Saturday, January 02, 2021

Some now claim that Trump has taken the presidential pardon privilege to a new low, while Bill Moyers, writing before Trump’s most recent wave of pardons (and addressing whether the president would pardon himself), wrote this: “we would argue that the all-time worst presidential pardon ever was granted by George H.W. Bush to former secretary of defense Caspar Weinberger.”

And he argues that, “in pardoning Weinberger, Bush was able to keep his activities secret, and in effect give himself a pardon.”

And so, he asks, “Was this the first presidential self-pardon? In a way, yes.”

But none of these pardons, however egregious some of them may be, compares with the most outrageous pardon in history.

It was not granted by an American president but by a Roman governor. And it did not take place in modern times but in ancient times, around the year 30 AD.