In one of the remaining public acts of his presidency, Joe Biden ceremonially “pardoned” two turkeys named Peach and Blossom on Monday. The intended light-hearted tradition is in stark relief this year, with serious questions looming about how Biden will use his clemency power before he leaves office and how Donald Trump will use it when he comes to power.

One question for Biden is whether he will commute the sentences of federal death row inmates to life in prison, as he suggested during his 2020 campaign. If he refuses, it will help streamline the continuation of executions that the Trump administration began during its first term.

In addition to death row, January 6 is on the agenda for the suspects charged in the attack on the Capitol, but also for Trump himself.

The president-elect has vowed clemency for the Jan. 6 defendants, and that prospect has already led to judges postponing trials to avoid wasting time when the cases eventually peter out. The potential for these sweeping “blanket” pardons across the board led one of those judges (a Trump appointee) to say this would be “extremely frustrating and disappointing.”

But a judge’s feelings have nothing to do with it. The power of pardons rests entirely with the president, who the Constitution clearly states “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States.” As the saying goes, elections have consequences.

These consequences are particularly serious for one criminal defendant: the newly elected president. His political victory ensured that his two federal cases would somehow disappear. Special Prosecutor Jack Smith will brief the courts on December 2 on how he plans to proceed (or not) in these cases. If they’re still around on Inauguration Day, Trump’s new Justice Department could revoke them, and the DOJ policy against charging and prosecuting sitting presidents would likely suspend them anyway.

So Trump likely won’t have to commit a legally untested self-pardon to get rid of his federal cases. But whether he tries to do so remains to be seen. (Presidents cannot pardon state cases, and it is unclear what will happen with his prosecutions in New York and Georgia.)

And while Trump has said he will pardon the Jan. 6 defendants, Biden has said he will not pardon his son Hunter, who is awaiting sentencing. The two situations are different, in part because Biden does not face criminal charges over the same events that led to Hunter’s indictment, as Trump does in the federal election interference case. But Trump and Biden’s different approaches to the scenarios in which they are personally connected could illustrate their clemency approach more broadly. (A Washington Post op-ed argues that Biden should pardon Trump, which seems unlikely for several reasons, including because Trump’s federal cases have essentially already been resolved.)

Ultimately, whatever one thinks of the turkey pardon tradition, it reminds us that there are important open questions of clemency in real cases.

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