President Biden’s surprise pardon of his son Hunter has prompted calls for the outgoing commander-in-chief to grant clemency to other Americans before he hands over the White House to President-elect Trump next month.
Some Democrats have used the Hunter Biden pardon to call on the president to give clemency to death row inmates and nonviolent offenders. Others have suggested Biden issue preemptive pardons to those Trump considers his enemies. Meanwhile, outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) said Biden should pardon his own former 2024 rival.
Here are some possible pardons Biden could issue before he leaves the White House in January.
Death row inmates
Progressive voices on Capitol Hill are pushing for Biden to give clemency to inmates facing the death penalty.
“Don‘t stop at Hunter Biden,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) told a CNN panel Monday. “Pardon the 40 people who are on death row right now to get them off of death row, number one.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told The Independent that “it’s less about the fact that the president pardoned his son and more about the fact that he’s only really pardoning his son” when there are Americans serving life in prison and “who are on death row, who should be taken off death row.”
Shortly before the news of Hunter’s pardon, the ACLU had issued a guide urging Biden to use his final months in office to commute federal death sentences. And groups that have long been calling for death row pardons, like the Prison Policy Initiative, are piling on in the wake of the Hunter Biden move.
Nonviolent offenders
Several Democrats openly criticized Biden, saying the move would ultimately hurt his party. But other lawmakers used it as an opportunity to call attention to other opportunities for clemency in the justice system.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is urging Biden to help nonviolent offenders in the federal system affected by “unjustly aggressive” prosecutions.
“President Biden should exercise the high level of compassion he has consistently demonstrated throughout his life, including toward his son, and pardon on a case-by-case basis the working-class Americans in the federal prison system whose lives have been ruined by unjustly aggressive prosecutions for nonviolent offenses,” Jeffries said in a statement.
Jeffries cited no specific names.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), a longtime advocate for criminal justice reform, has also renewed her calls for more sweeping leniency.
“I’m thinking of the hundreds of thousands of people who pose no threat to society and whose lives are deteriorating due to America’s mass incarceration crisis and unjust criminal legal system,” Pressley said.
She was part of a letter last month signed by more than 60 House lawmakers asking Biden to use his clemency power to “set our nation on the path” toward ending mass incarceration.
Bowman also pressed Biden to forgive “the 3,000 people who are in federal jail for trumped-up marijuana charges.”
Earlier this year, Biden granted clemency to 16 people who were convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, citing a commitment “to addressing racial disparities and improving public safety,” after making a similar move last year. In 2022, he pardoned everyone convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law.
Trump
Manchin, the Democrat-turned-independent senator who himself is on his way out of public office, has said Biden should use his pardon power on the president-elect.
“What I would have done differently, and my recommendation as a counsel woulda been, ‘Why don’t you go ahead and pardon Donald Trump, for all his charges?’” Manchin told CNN over the weekend.
Things would have “gone down a lot more balanced” if Biden had done so, Manchin said.
Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) told CNN this week that Manchin “may be on to something there” and signaled he’d support Biden pardoning Trump, who faced a slew of federal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents and his connection to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
Clyburnpointed to the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling to argue that the high court “has pretty much made it very clear that he is preemptively pardoned of anything he may do as president.”
Trump faced historic legal battles as he campaigned to return to the White House this cycle. But late last month, special counsel Jack Smith moved to drop both federal cases against Trump in light of Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
Trump’s perceived enemies
Days before Biden pardoned Hunter, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) suggested that Biden could consider pardons to protect Trump’s perceived enemies.
“I think that without question, Trump is going to try to act in a dictatorial way, in a fascistic way, in a revengeful [way his] first year … towards individuals who he believes harmed him,” Markey told Boston Public Radio. “I would say that, if it’s clear by January 19th that that is his intention, then I would recommend to President Biden that he provide those preemptive pardons to people.”
Clyburn echoed those calls this week, saying special counsel Jack Smith and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) – who stoked Trump’s ire in Congress and then campaigned for Harris this cycle – are on his “list” of those who should be preemptively pardoned.
“I think there are people who Trump may bring into this government who will go after these people in a serious way, and there’s no need to subject them to that,” Clyburn told CNN. Other voices have suggested pardons for Robert Mueller, Gen. Mark Milley and former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.).
Julian Assange, Marilyn Mosby and others
A set of unlikely lawmakers – Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.)and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) – urged Biden last month to pardon Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who pleaded guilty this year to a felony count under the Espionage Act.
Assange could also see a pardon under Trump, who’s said he’s open to considering clemency.
Some advocates are also calling for clemency for Marilyn Mosby, a former Baltimore City state’s attorney who is on house arrest after federal convictions this year.
Biden has received more than 10,000 commutation petitions and nearly 1,300 pardon requests so far, according to statistics from the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. He’s granted just 25 total pardons, before Hunter’s was added to the list, and 132 commutations.
By comparison, Trump pardoned 144 Americans in his first term, and commuted 94 sentences. Former President Obama granted 212 pardons and 1,715 commutations.
Asked in a press briefing this week whether Biden will grant some of his outstanding clemency petitions, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said more pardons can be expected at the end of the incumbent’s term.
“He’s thinking through that process very thoroughly,” Jean-Pierre said. “There’s a process in place, obviously. … But you could expect more announcements, more [pardons] and clemency … at the end of this term.”
