President Joe Biden honored a time-old presidential tradition on Dec. 12 by issuing 39 pardons for non-violent offenses and a historical nearly 1,500 commuted sentences.
The individuals had “shown their commitment to rehabilitation by securing employment and advancing their education,” the White House said in a statement.
Biden also made the controversial decision to pardon his son last month after previously saying that he would not do so.
Hunter Biden had been charged with evading taxes and being an illegal drug user in possession of a gun. The president said that his son was a victim of partisanship in the judicial system.
The act of pardoning is written into the constitution as one of the president’s powers. It’s tradition for presidents to issue pardons during the last few months of their term in office, otherwise known as a “lame duck session,” due to their inability to make any significant change.
In America’s history of presidential pardons, there have been a few controversial ones.
In 1974, incoming President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon over the Watergate scandal.
Watergate was a political corruption case in which the Nixon administration was caught involved in illegal surveillance activities, including a break-in at the opposing party’s committee headquarters, which they tried to cover up.
The term Watergate is now synonymous with political scandals.
Outgoing President Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother in 2001, who had been sentenced to a year in prison for selling cocaine to an undercover officer.
He also pardoned wealthy financier Marc Rich, who had fled the United States to avoid tax evasion charges and illegal oil deals with Iran during the 1979–1981 hostage crisis. This was somewhat controversial as it was discovered that his ex-wife, Denise Rich, had made substantial donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Presidential Center.
President-elect Donald Trump has said that he will consider pardoning nearly 1,500 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach in 2021.
During his first term, Trump pardoned close associates Roger Stone, Paul Mannorfort, and Charles Kushner, who had been charged as a result of federal prosecutors investigations into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Talks about pardoning former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked thousands of classified documents online in 2013, have been on the table among Trump’s circle.
Biden has said that more pardons will be announced over the coming weeks.
Lawmakers, including Democratic lawmakers, are also prompting Biden to pardon Trump from the federal criminal cases that have been brought against him.
America’s first presidential pardon was issued by President George Washington, the country’s first president in 1775, when he saved participants of the “Whiskey Rebellion”—farmers illegally distilling whiskey on their land to evade whiskey tax—from being hung for treason.
