The presidential pardon clearly needs to have some checks and balances to prevent blatant abuses, like Trump pardoning his son-in-law's father as well as people who engaged in corrupt dealings on Trump's behalf. (Or for that matter, Bill Clinton pardoning his own brother and one of his biggest donors on his last day in office). Even allies of the president are often critical of their choices of people to pardon.
There should be a restriction on pardons for relatives of elected officials or pardons for crimes committed in the course of doing work for the president's team. Pardons could be subject to approval by a majority vote in the Senate. This would also have the side effect of preventing "midnight pardons" as there would have to be time for the Senate to deliberate and discuss them.
This might actually be an issue that could achieve bipartisan support, as most people can recall some abuse of the presidential pardon power. This is an issue that will take a constitutional amendment to fix, so it's not trivial, but now might be a good time to do it as the problems with the system are obvious I looked around to see if there's a political movement for this already, but I don't see one. If you know of one, let me know and I'll throw money at it. I'm sick of normalized corruption.
