This is CBS, I on the world. I'm John Batchel.

Pardons, presidential pardons, much in the news.

I welcome Andrew McCarthy of the National Review Online,

and that is McCutter of American greatness to comment on

what we know so far about the power of the presidential pardon and in specific

who was pardoned and why. Andy, a very good evening to you and I read from a paragraph you

posted some days past. In its 1915 decision in Burdick v. United States, the Supreme Court

ruled that a pardon must be accepted

in order to have legal effect because of the, quote, confession of guilt implied in the

acceptance of a pardon, end quote. The court elaborated that in terms of public shame,

a pardon can involve, quote, consequences of even greater significance

than those from which it purports to relieve, end quote. If I understand, then everyone who

accepted the pardon offered, especially those who were pardoned without an offense named or a grand jury convened or charges made,

are admitting to guilt? Is that how to interpret the Supreme Court? Good evening to you, Andy.

Good evening, John and Thaddeus. Well, that is how you would interpret it under the verdict decision from 1915.

Now, there's been a lot of pushback on that in the ensuing century.

And I think a lot of this is well taken, especially unlike 1915, we're now in an age of politicized prosecution where an innocent person could reasonably say

I would be delighted to take a pardon even though I haven't done anything wrong in order to spare me

at least some of the expense and ignominy of being under a criminal investigation and criminal

charges.

And that is the way that the Biden people tried to spin the pardons that he issued, that President

Biden issued to, you know, public officials and members of Biden's own family.

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