Bharara is lying or misinformed. I’ll be charitable and assume he knows nothing about his former job.
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https://www.justice.gov/pardon/rules-governing-petitions-executive-clemency#pardon
1.2 Eligibility for filing petition for pardon.
No petition for pardon should be filed until the expiration of a waiting period of at least five years after the date of the release of the petitioner from confinement or, in case no prison sentence was imposed, until the expiration of a period of at least five years after the date of the conviction of the petitioner. Generally, no petition should be submitted by a person who is on probation, parole, or supervised release.
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Sheriff Joe Arpaio was outside the guidelines to file a petition for pardon, but well within the scope of the President’s constitutional power to pardon. It’s a paperwork question for the person convicted, and there is no indication Sheriff Joe filed any paperwork.
Bharara was a self promoter and not a good prosecutor.
I.e. DOJ guidelines are that no petition should be filed until the entire issue is merely academic.
But, in the 74th Federalist Paper Alexander Hamilton wrote:
the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.
Hamilton goes on to demolish little men such as this preening Preet:
[Having argued why the power of pardoning is properly placed in one man, Hamilton argues the problem with reposing such power in the many]... [a]s men generally derive confidence from their numbers, they might often encourage each other in an act of obduracy, and might be less sensible to the apprehension of suspicion or censure for an injudicious or affected clemency. On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government, than a body of men [such as Preet, McClame, Ryno, and their fellow travelers].