The pardon power is just out of control. It was never meant to let off people who do huge financial scams, or people obviously guilty and deserving of punishment. Here is some historical background I’m recycling from a post I did about the Hunter Biden pardon: The pardon power goes all the way back to medieval England, where it was called the "prerogative of mercy." Court systems and trials were more haphazard, mistakes were made, corruption wasn't uncommon, and the King was the ultimate authority - so the idea was he could step in and correct an obvious miscarriage of justice. In Federalist Paper 74, Alexander Hamilton defended including the pardon power in the Constitution along the same lines: "The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel."