The Pardon

The Politics of Presidential Mercy

Jeffrey Toobin

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781668084960
• Subtopic: Public Law
• Index: Politics & International Relations

“A splendid narrative about political power and mercy.” —David Grann, #1 bestselling author of The Wager

The power of the presidential pardon has our national attention now more than ever before. This “thought-provoking and strenuously argued” (The Washington Post) book from New York Times bestselling author and CNN legal commentator Jeffrey Toobin provides a timely and compelling narrative of the most controversial presidential pardon in American history—Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, revealing the profound implications for our current political landscape, and how it is already affecting the legacies of both Presidents Biden and Trump.

In this deeply reported book, Toobin explores why the Founding Fathers gave the power of pardon to the President and recreates the behind-the-scenes political melodrama during the tumultuous period around Nixon’s resignation. The story features a rich cast of characters, including Alexander Haig, Nixon’s last chief of staff, who pushed for the pardon, and a young Justice Department lawyer named Antonin Scalia, who provided the legal justification.

Ford’s shocking decision to pardon Nixon was widely criticized at the time, yet it has since been reevaluated as a healing gesture for a divided country. But Toobin argues that Ford’s pardon was an unwise gift to an undeserving recipient and an unsettling political precedent. The Pardon explores those that followed: Jimmy Carter’s amnesty for Vietnam draft resisters, Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, and the extraordinary story of Trump’s unprecedented pardons at the end of his first term.

“A master class on a power wielded by presidents for more than 200 years” (The Guardian), The Pardon is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, the complex dynamics of power within the highest office in the nation, and the implications of presidential mercy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Prologue: Daredevil Sunday
• Chapter 1: Nixon’s Lost Insurance
• Chapter 2: The Benign Prerogative
• Chapter 3: The VP’s Job
• Chapter 4: “A Total Pardon”
• Chapter 5: To Charge ‘Le Grand Fromage’
• Chapter 6: Both Sides of West Exec
• Chapter 7: Expletive Deleted
• Chapter 8: Supreme Stakes
• Chapter 9: The Vise Closes
• Chapter 10: Pardons and Self-Pardons
• Chapter 11: The Sixth Option
• Chapter 12: Party in Interest
• Chapter 13: The Sun Sets on Nixon
• Chapter 14: Nightmare’s End
• Chapter 15: Ford Settles In
• Chapter 16: The Collapsing Floor
• Chapter 17: A Leak-Free Decision
• Chapter 18: Delivering the Pumpkin
• Chapter 19: The Prosecution Caves
• Chapter 20: From Nixon to Trump
• Chapter 21: Showdown at Casa Pacifica
• Chapter 22: The Last Cuff Links
• Chapter 23: “We Have All Played a Part”
• Chapter 24: The Legacy of the Pardon
• Chapter 25: Ford’s Burden
• Chapter 26: All Roads Lead to, and from, Willie Horton
• Chapter 27: The Atrophy and Rebirth of the Pardon Power
• Chapter 28: The First-Term Trump Pardons
• Epilogue: Time Clarifies
• Author’s Note
• About the Author
• Notes
• Index
• Copyright