CORRECTION --
Due to a reporter's error, Jean Becker's last name was spelled incorrectly in the Presidential Forum story in Wednesday's News Tribune.
The president's power to pardon and to issue executive orders or memoranda have been hot topics in the last few years.
They were two of the topics covered during a Tuesday forum by three Midwesterners who served three different U.S. presidents during the last 40 years.
"I take a very jaded view of executive orders and presidential memoranda," St. Louis attorney Greg Willard told a group of mostly high school teachers from around Missouri at Calvary Lutheran High School in Jefferson City.
"I think they have created an 'Imperial Presidency' on steroids," he added, noting his biggest complaint is "with the courts and the Congress, because they were given powers in the Constitution to deal with this - and they're not doing it."
Willard served as a personal aide to President Gerald R. Ford. He was the Fords' personal attorney and also was responsible for planning and supervising the funerals for Ford in 2006 and first lady Betty Ford in 2011.
He also teaches a constitutional law course on presidential power at Saint Louis University.
He said there is a place for executive orders, to ensure laws are implemented as Congress wanted them.
Instead, presidents have used those powers as a way to get around Congress, he said.
Jean Becker - a Martinsburg native who now serves as former President George H.W. Bush's chief of staff - agreed many presidents began using executive orders more because "Congress failed to legislate."
What also has been lacking, she said, is a willingness to compromise between congressional leaders and those in the White House.
"Real leadership is knowing how to get things done," said Stephanie Streett, who was Bill Clinton's scheduling director and now is the Clinton Foundation's executive director. "You know that you have to make compromises at the end of the day, to get things done for our country."
Presidential pardons also have been controversial over the years.
"The Constitution is very clear," Willard said, "the president shall have power to grant pardons and reprieves."
He noted even though the Constitution writers avoided many English law traditions, they made sure the president had the British king's pardon power.
The most recent controversy involved President Donald Trump's decision to pardon former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio after he was convicted of criminal contempt of federal court orders involving racial profiling.
"People were really ticked about that," Willard noted. "But I think part of the criticism - that's never talked about - is this visceral notion that (we) have as Americans, that there's something about unilateral power in one person that bothers us."
David Lile, a Columbia radio personality who moderated the forum, noted no hearings are held by either the Justice Department or the White House - and the person seeking a pardon is notified in writing of the president's decision.
But the power became "mucked up," Willard said, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in 1915 a person could reject a presidential pardon and that accepting it was a "confession of guilt."
Ford used that argument with Richard Nixon before pardoning the former president for any mistakes made while Nixon was in office, including his role in the Watergate cover-up that nearly led to his impeachment.
But nothing in the Constitution says accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt, Willard said.
He said a shining example of the presidential pardon came from Clinton, who in 1999 overturned the 1870s court martial embezzlement conviction and dishonorable discharge from the U.S. Army of Lt. Henry O. Flipper, the first African-American to graduate from West Point.
"(Flipper) didn't do anything wrong," Willard said. "He served our nation admirably, and he was run out of the military because of the color of his skin.
"And President Clinton had the courage to make that right."
Streett said most presidents think long and hard about issuing pardons. "There's an enormous amount of pressure that comes from inside the administration, outside the administration, from world leaders, from other people regarding presidential pardons," she said, "and the presidents have to make up their minds on what they think is the fair and right thing to do.
"And for the one or two controversial ones you hear about, the ones you don't hear about are the ones where people are made right or made whole."
Becker said the elder Bush's most controversial pardon involved a number of the people who were part of the complicated, controversial Iran-Contra affair. Arms were sold to Iran to raise money to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua, during the Reagan administration.
"President Bush, if he were here, would tell you that he stands by those pardons," Becker said, "but the press was brutal toward him
"He did it because it was the right thing. He just thought the country needed to move on."