President Trump made news this week by pardoning a conservative commentator, Dinesh D’Souza, and hinting that he may also pardon Martha Stewart, the lifestyle mogul, and Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois. In discussing these cases, President Trump often returns to a theme. He says these people have been treated unfairly by prosecutors, and that resonates with some of his thinking about his own case. Many presidents have thought themselves confined by constitutional norms. But there’s really no question that the Constitution gives the president unlimited authority to pardon people convicted of federal crimes. Previous presidents have used much of their pardon authority on cases of more ordinary Americans who have served their entire sentence, expressed remorse, and after years applied for a pardon. It’s not particularly unusual for presidents to pardon prominent people, including high-profile associates caught up in the criminal justice system, but they typically do it late in their terms. That doesn’t mean there are no responses to pardons people might find inappropriate. Impeachment of course is a possibility, or political consequences. “I feel that Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough.” When President Gerald Ford pardoned President Nixon after Nixon resigned, it surely contributed to President Ford’s inability to gain election. President Trump has used his pardon authority really exclusively to focus on prominent people, often people closely aligned with him politically or caught up in investigations that he finds unfair because they mirror investigations of him and his associates. Many of the cases involve prosecutions brought by people that President Trump dislikes, notably the former director of the F.B.I. and the former United States attorney from the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, whom President Trump fired. To associates entangled in the Russia investigation, they might think that President Trump’s willingness to issue these pardons suggests he’s prepared to pardon them as well.