The offer of a pardon would precede the act of pardoning and thus be within Congress’s power to regulate even if the pardon itself is not. Just as the Speech or Debate Clause, U.S. Const. Art. I, § 6, cl.1, absolutely protects legislative acts, but not a legislator’s “taking or agreeing to take money for a promise to act in a certain way…for it is taking the bribe, not performance of the illicit compact, that is a criminal act,” United States v. Brewster, 408
