Romney: Founders didn't intend pardons to be used for "cronies"

“I can’t imagine the founders in providing for pardon power for a president anticipated that presidents would use it to reward political friends, and as a result I would hope that we could develop a tradition of more narrowly providing pardons,” Romney said.

Romney said there should be a tradition of “not providing them to people who are cronies or political individuals.”

Romney said he “would love to see a constitutional remedy” even though he acknowledged “it’s unlikely that something like that can get passed just given the difficult process of passing a constitutional amendment.”