It Was Twenty (Five) Years Ago Today. . .

Dan Greenberg

Twenty-five years ago, President Clinton’s midnight pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich triggered universal outrage. Today, public reaction to an array of similar presidential pardons is often silence or a shrug: The uproar over Rich’s pardon in 2001 contrasts sharply with the numbness and resignation that President Trump’s pardons produce today. It is tempting to explain the change by invoking something like national amnesia or national denial. But it is more precise...