A Capitol rioter has argued that Donald Trump's pardon should also extend to his conviction of a plot to murder the FBI agents who had been on his case.

But the pardon bonanza, for all its shock value and undeniable historical import, obscured a series of momentous policy changes initiated through an avalanche of new Trump executive orders.

But the root of the problem isn’t the scope of the pardon power; it’s the collapse of restraint on the exercise of executive power in general. And as with all norm spirals, it’s hard to ...