Has there ever been a US POTUS with a record of more personal ties with the power of pardons being practiced than that of president Trump's at the current moment?
While he has less than one month before he can no longer use this power at all it may not be fair to wait if he's already the most pardoning POTUS for people with personal ties.
Perhaps this question can wait to be answered after this time period expires when deep and comprehensive analyses of his presidency is likely to exist and we know the exact numbers to answer.
Trump has used the power of pardon for people that have in fact been very close to him, others that are quite personal in nature, and that also seem to protect himself in connection to Russia and the Mueller probe.
So has there ever been such cronyism practiced according to the records of the presidential power of pardon with this respect that is more than just controversial?
Notable Items - Personal Ties
It didn't take too much effort to find notable items of personal ties for those Trump has pardoned that people believe it true, and below are a few of those.
- All of Trump’s Russia Ties, in 7 Charts
- Re Flynn, Stone, and Manafort at least
- Trump's pardons of Rod Blagojevich and others meant to convince America corruption is OK
- Here are the high-profile pardons and commutations Trump has granted during his presidency
Objectively Measuring
It doesn't take too much to think of ways to objectively measure how one could have close ties to a president that he pardons and below are just a few examples.
- Members of the President's campaign, related through marriage, and ties within businesses (including television) before being president.
- Count the graph hops, like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. With SDoKB an imdb entry constitutes a node, but a political pardon node would need to be defined somewhat differently. Perhaps it could be who a given person knows, or has done business with, inferred as per available public records.
- It can be done for terrorists (e.g. A graph database framework for covert network analysis: An application to the Islamic State network in Europe) and there are lots of SNA papers on terrorism
