On Oct. 17, President Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of former Republican Rep. George Santos for wire fraud and identity theft.

Trump’s decision to spring Santos is just the latest in his flagrant misuse of the pardon power. The Constitution gives the president the right to pardon or commute the sentence of whomever he likes, and that is one of the few failures within our Constitution.

The pardon power should be reformed or repealed altogether through constitutional amendment. America cannot afford to simply trust its leader to act responsibly anymore.

Trump's pardons are more blatant, but he is not the first to abuse them

Trump’s actions in his second term, between the low-level abuse in commuting Santos' sentence and the outright gross pardon of rioters involved at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, have been nothing short of offensive.

To be sure, President Joe Biden’s pardon of his family members, including his son Hunter, was corrupt as well. I condemned them all the same.

But there are differences between these presidential abuses of power. Biden’s pardons reeked of the shame of a failed president leaving office, using his dying moments in political power to serve his family's own corrupt desires. Trump’s actions, on the other hand, are completely unapologetic. Trump does not shy away from the fact that pardons are afforded on the basis of how loyal people are to him.

His action on Santos comes after the former New York congressman wrote a letter groveling for help from Trump, highlighting his fealty to the Republican Party and to the president himself.

However, the most transparent example of Trump’s blatant view on how pardons ought to be administered comes, of all places, from a question about whether he would consider pardoning Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was found guilty in July on two counts of transportation for prostitution but was acquitted of the more serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. On Oct. 3, the rapper and producer was sentenced to 50 months in prison.

“I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great, and he seemed like a nice guy. I didn’t know him well, but when I ran for office, he was very hostile," Trump said in an August interview with Newsmax. He went on to explain that the hostile relationship “makes it more difficult to do.”

Nowhere in that rationale were any facts of the case discussed, or any of the ordinary factors that ought to be considered when debating a pardon, only the “not so nice things” Combs has said about Trump. Nor were the horrific crimes for which Combs is convicted. The only requirement for a pardon is loyalty, and Trump is eager both to reward those who have acted as such and to reassure those acting on his behalf currently that he has their back.

Amend the Constitution to remove presidential pardon power

Trump doesn't waste his breath apologizing for his use of the pardon power. And why should he? Sure, there is a norm of the pardon’s use, but the Constitution grants a quite expansive pardon power to the president.

Take a look at Article II of the Constitution, the source of the pardon power: “The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

This is the source of both the pardons, complete forgiveness for a crime, and commutations, the ending of a criminal sentence. The corrupt pardons from both Trump and Biden fit well within those parameters, whether we like it or not. America was always going to eventually elect leaders corrupt enough to abuse the pardon power. While others will simply say elect better leaders, the American people have demonstrated a keen ability to do anything but that across the past decade.

However, the fact that we keep electing corrupt leaders doesn’t create this problem; it simply reveals it. In our Republican system of governance, which is at every turn designed to mitigate the ways in which individuals can abuse power for personal gain, the pardon power has always uniquely stood out to me as an exception to that philosophy.

The pardon power is akin to an executive veto against the will of both the legislative branch, which passes laws, and the judicial branch, which determines violations of the law, with no chance for either branch to override said veto.

The pardon power was always out of place within our constitutional structure, but as the quality of our leaders deteriorates, its flaws stand out even more. The pardon power should be repealed, or at the very least be reformed.

Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump commuting Santos' prison sentence is just more presidential overreach | Opinion

Reporting by Dace Potas, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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