Presidential Pardons Trivia Quiz

Answer: Warren G. Harding

Eugene Debs was convicted in June of 1918 for violating the Espionage Act of 1917 for a speech he had given three months earlier criticizing the United States involvement in World War One. Despite having a strong argument that his conviction violated the free speech provisions of the first amendment, Debs lost his appeal to the Supreme Court, and he started serving a ten-year sentence in April of 1919.

President Woodrow Wilson was under strong pressure to pardon Debs, but he refused, stating that, although the fighting was over, the war had technically not ended because the Treaty of Versailles had not yet been finalized. But even after the treaty was signed in June, Wilson still refused, saying that his Attorney Genera had not recommended a pardon for Debs. Even after his AG made such a recommendation, Wilson still refused. Wilson's successor, Warren G. Harding, commuted Debs' sentence to time served, just in time for Debs to spend Christmas, 1921 with his family.

The Espionage Act of 1917 has always been controversial, as very few prosecutions under this act have involved actual spying. For example, the Obama administration used this act to prosecute at least nine government whistleblowers for releasing classified information to the press or to the public, even though not one of the nine was acting on behalf of a foreign power.

Answer: John Adams

John Fries was the leader of the Fries Rebellion, a revolt in eastern Pennsylvania of Pennsylvania Dutch farmers against the federal excise tax being levied to finance the so-called Quasi-War with France during the John Adams administration. Fries was tried for treason and sentenced to be hanged, but Adams pardoned him, recognizing that the government had grossly overreacted to what was really a minor uprising.

Answer: Bill Clinton

Patty Hearst, granddaughter of famed newspaperman William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped at age 19 from her Berkeley, California apartment by a group calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Two months later, in April of 1974, she was photographed participating in a bank robbery.

Her brainwashing defense failed, and she was convicted and sentenced to a seven-year prison term. She served 22 months of the sentence before Jimmy Carter commuted the sentence to time served. Bill Clinton later issued her a full pardon on his last day in office in 2001.

Hearst's congressman, Leo Ryan, was working for her release at the time he was killed visiting the Jonestown camp in Guyana. The irony here was unmistakable, in that the government's position was that Jim Jones could brainwash 900 people into committing mass suicide, but the SLA could not have brainwashed a kidnapped teenage girl.

Answer: Richard Nixon

From the time he took over the presidency of the Teamsters' Union in 1957, Jimmy Hoffa was dogged with accusations of corruption, as had his predecessor, Dave Beck. Hoffa was eventually convicted of various corruption charges and, after exhausting his appeals, began serving a 13-year sentence in March of 1967.

President Nixon commuted Hoffa's sentence to time served in December of 1971, and Hoffa began a quest to regain control of the Teamsters' Union, even though Nixon had imposed a condition on the commutation that Hoffa have no labor union involvement. Hoffa mysteriously disappeared on July 30, 1975, and fifty years later his disappearance had still not been solved, although theories abounded.

Answer: Andrew Johnson

Samuel Mudd was one of eight defendants put on trial before a Military Commission for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He wasn't believed to have participated in the assassination plot, but rather was convicted for aiding John Wilkes Booth in his escape by setting Booth's broken leg.

President Andrew Johnson pardoned Mudd shortly before he left office in early 1869. The other two surviving defendants who had received prison sentences rather than execution were also pardoned in 1869.

Answer: Gerald Ford

Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974, due to the Watergate scandal, and Gerald Ford was sworn in as his successor. A month later, on September 8th, Ford granted Nixon a full and complete pardon for any crimes he may have committed during his presidency.

The pardon was likely the cause of Ford's narrowly losing the 1976 presidential election to Jimmy Carter. The mistake Ford made was issuing the pardon without informing the country that he was considering this action. As a result, it seemed to the country that he had gone to church that Sunday morning and suddenly decided to grant Nixon the pardon based on something he'd heard at church.

In making the pardon Ford relied on the 1915 Supreme Court case of Burdick v. United States for the idea that by accepting the pardon Nixon was admitting his guilt.

Answer: Ronald Reagan

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was convicted in 1974 on felony charges of conspiracy to make illegal corporate campaign contributions to Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign. He was pardoned by Ronald Reagan during Reagan's last days in office in 1989.

Answer: George H. W. Bush

As Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan, Caspar Weinberger got caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal which plagued the last two years of the Reagan administration. He was indicted in June of 1992 for perjury and obstruction of justice, but he was pardoned in December of 1992 by outgoing president George H. W. Bush.

Answer: George Washington

The Whiskey Rebellion was a revolt in western Pennsylvania in 1794 against a federal excise tax on whiskey. Two of the rebels were tried and convicted of treason, but President Washington pardoned them, his goal of establishing the supremacy of federal power having been achieved.

Answer: James Buchanan

Brigham Young's pardon was negotiated as part of the settlement of the Utah War, which took place in 1857-1858 between federal troops and Mormon settlers in the Utah territory. During this war a horrible massacre took place in Mountain Meadows, in southern Utah territory, when 120 members of the Baker-Fancher wagon train headed to California were brutally slaughtered by Mormon settlers.

Eventually a settlement was reached in which the Utah territory acknowledged federal authority, and Brigham Young relinquished the governorship to a non-Mormon. All of the Mormon leaders, including Young, who were not physically present at the Mountain Meadows massacre were pardoned.