PARDON ME: Biden Issues a Record 1,538 Executive Clemencies

President Joe Biden released a list of 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations of sentences Thursday, setting the record for presidential clemencies in a single day.

The White House described the majority of those pardoned as having committed “nonviolent drug offenses.” The list did not go into detail on specific crimes.

The pardon list includes Mikhail Zemlyansky, a Long Island, New York, man who committed a $35 million fraud. New York City’s WNBC-TV reported prosecutors called it “the largest single no-fault car insurance fraud scheme ever prosecuted.”

John Paul Garcia’s name also appears on the list. The Las Vegas Optic’s jail log from July 26 reports Garcia was booked into the San Miguel County Detention Center for battery on a household member, despite the White House describing his crime as a “nonviolent offense.”

The full list of pardons and commutations can be found here.

The president is reportedly considering issuing preemptive pardons to President-elect Donald Trump’s political opponents, some of whom could include Dr. Anthony Fauci and former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo.

“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Biden said in a White House press release. 

“As president, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for nonviolent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses.”

Trump promised he is “going to be acting very quickly” to pardon those imprisoned from the Jan. 6 protests in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

Joe Biden on Dec. 1 granted his son, Hunter, a “full and unconditional pardon” for every federal offense that Hunter committed or may have committed from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1 of this year. That reneged on the promise the elder Biden made multiple times that he would not pardon his son.

Biden concluded his statement on Thursday’s clemency list by stating, “My administration will continue reviewing clemency petitions” over the coming weeks. He leaves office on Jan. 20.

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