Johnny Olszewski

It was with profound frustration that I read in The Baltimore Sun that President Donald Trump has pardoned another drug kingpin — this one convicted in 2014 of distributing more than 1,000 kilograms of cocaine onto Baltimore’s streets (“Trump grants clemency to Baltimore drug trafficker who ran multimillion-dollar ring,” Dec. 9). A federal agent described the defendant, Garnett Gilbert Smith, as “one of the largest cocaine and heroin dealers to be arrested by the DEA in recent history.”

This has become a deeply troubling pattern from our self-styled law-and-order president. Just last week, he pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was sentenced to 45 years for moving hundreds of tons of cocaine into America. The administration has failed to offer compelling reasons for any of these clemency cases.

Presidents of both parties have abused the pardon power to reward political allies and protect family members, and doing so undermines our system of checks and balances: The executive branch shouldn’t be able to so recklessly and unilaterally overturn the laws of Congress and their applications through the judicial branch.

That’s why I am introducing a constitutional amendment to enable Congress to overturn egregious pardons. The Pardon Integrity Act requires 20 House members and five members of the Senate to initiate a pardon review process. Congress would have 60 days to vote to reject a pardon with a two-thirds supermajority.

The goal isn’t to abolish presidential pardons altogether, but to make a president think twice before abusing the privilege. In the worst cases, it allows Congress to intervene — helping to restore public trust in our system of government.

— Rep. Johnny Olszewski, Towson

The letter writer represents Maryland in the U.S. House of Representatives and was the Baltimore County executive from 2018 to 2025.