If anything, Biden has been unforgivably stingy with pardons and commutations 👎🏿👎🏿
Trump can go fuck himself, but let’s not lose sight of the underlying issue here: Joe Biden could have been using his pardon power for good all along, to change the lives of unfairly convicted people for the better — but he hasn’t.
How many pardons have other presidents issued?
There is a long-standing precedent of US presidents on both sides of the political divide issuing pardons - including to people close to them. This is (only) the 26th pardon issued by Biden, a Democrat.
In 2020, Trump, a Republican, pardoned Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of his daughter Ivanka. Kushner was sentenced to two years in prison in 2004 for charges including tax evasion, campaign finance offences and witness tampering.
And in 2001, Bill Clinton, pardoned his younger half-brother, Roger Clinton, for a cocaine-related offence that dated back to 1985.
In both cases, the pardons were given to people who had already served a sentence. President Biden's intervention in his son's case comes before sentencing.
Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his four years in the White House, according to the Pew Research Center, comprising 143 pardons and 94 commuted sentences. [Mostly conservative political allies and cronies.] Many were in a flurry before he left office.
That number is significantly fewer than his predecessor Barack Obama, who during his eight-year stint granted 1,927 acts of clemency, according to Pew. These were 1,715 commutations and 212 pardons.
Most of those who received executive clemency under Obama had been convicted of narcotics charges at the height of the so-called US war on drugs. (source)
