Prof. Murray in Bloomberg News Article About President Trump’s Use of His Clemency Process

Professor Murray, whose Clemency Project at the Law School submitted 35 clemency petitions under the clemency process instituted by President Obama, was quoted in an in-depth piece at Bloomberg News about President Trump’s use of his clemency process. The Law School’s project has eight clemency applications pending before President Trump. “There are different paradigms for presidential clemency. [Some presidents] focused it on particular categories of people [and] some used it to close a political chapter and create a clean slate going forward,” said Murray, giving the example of Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon following his resignation over Watergate. “But most have used it in an ad hoc way,” Murray maintained, concluding that it’s “too soon to make sweeping statements about President Trump’s strategy (if any) in using his pardon power.”