Cryptocurrency billionaires. Disgraced politicians. Reality TV stars. And hundreds of political allies.
Since taking office for a second term, United States President Donald Trump has issued more than 1,840 acts of clemency to a range of personalities.
Presidents have long stirred controversy in their choices of people to pardon. But experts argue that the way Trump has exercised his clemency power violates rules and norms in place for more than a century.
Now, they warn that pardons and commutations have become transactional, with Trump using them to reward those loyal to his agenda.
Some beneficiaries have been supporters of his “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement, including the hundreds of rioters who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Biden was at over 4K clemency/pardons, Trump you gotta up those numbers, those are rookie numbers
(this isn’t new, this has been a problem for many years, I first noticed this with Bill Clinton but it may be even older than that)
I looked it up and there was a good rationale based on fairness behind Biden’s pardons. Most of Biden’s pardons also weren’t really pardons, but commutations of sentences: “Context: The thousands pardoned on Friday were “serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today,” Biden’s statement said.” https://www.axios.com/2025/01/17/biden-presidential-pardons-clemency-record Which seems fair and also needed to me. Imagine having 10 years left to serve of your 20 years sentence, while new convicts only receive max 5 years for the same crime.
What Biden did with pardons was completely different from what Trump is doing with them.