George Holding: “My amendment prohibits funds from this bill from being used to transfer or to detail employees to the Office of the…”

“My amendment prohibits funds from this bill from being used to transfer or to detail employees to the Office of the Pardon Attorney. The President possesses the constitutional authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States. However, in the first 5 years of this President's administration, President Obama granted fewer pardons and commutations than any of his recent predecessors. Earlier this year, the Deputy Attorney General took the unprecedented step of asking the defense bar for assistance in recruiting candidates for executive clemency, specifically Federal drug offenders. The Justice Department intends to beef up its pardon attorney's office to process applications for commutations of sentence for Federal drug offenders. This is clear, and this amendment would prohibit that. The Constitution gives the President the pardon power, but the fact that the President has finally chosen to use that power and to use it solely on behalf of drug offenders shows that this is little more than a political ploy by the administration to bypass Congress yet again. This is not as the Founders intended, an exercise of the power to provide for exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, but the use of the pardon power to benefit an entire class of offenders who were duly convicted in a court of law and is serving a sentence. It is also just the latest example of executive overreach by this administration.…”