Given Trump's Friday night pardons of alleged/convicted war criminals at Fox host Pete Hegseth's behest, here's a list of all the grants of executive clemency I could link to Fox (nine), and the people its hosts continue to ask the president to pardon. mediamatters.org/donald-trump/t…
Presidential power is constrained by constitutional and legal checks and balances as well as the need to get the bureaucracy to follow through. But pardon power is virtually unrestricted and can be wielded by tweet. That makes Fox uniquely influential as it instructs him.
Some Trump clemency recipients are Fox heroes; others are clients of pro-Trump lawyers who use the network to defend him; still more are individuals whose cases became causes celebre of Trump-loving hosts.
Fox hosts have also championed pardons for Mueller's "victims," giving Trump cover if he chooses to grant clemency to those who may have committed crimes in order to shield him from legal and political exposure.
Lawyers understand Fox's power and are building it into their pardon campaigns. Several people received pardons after they or their relatives did interviews requesting them on the network.
