President Biden pardoned 39 people and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 others on Thursday, a sweeping move that comes after pressure from criminal justice advocates over the surprise pardon of his son Hunter Biden.
The White House billed it as setting a new single-day record for the number of people impacted. They include those who have seen serving house arrest since the COVID-19 pandemic and nonviolent offenders.
President Biden also pledged to “take more steps in the weeks ahead” as his administration continues to review clemency petitions with just more than a month left in his White House tenure.
Here are five things to know about the move:
Biden's move hits new single-day record
The blast of clemencies to more than 1,500 Americans marks the most ever issued in a day, the White House touted, and they come after Biden faced recent criticism for not matching up to the leniency numbers of his predecessors.
Trump pardoned 144 Americans in his first term and commuted 94 sentences, according to statistics from the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. Former President Obama — under whose administration Biden was vice president — granted 212 pardons and a whopping 1,715 commutations across his two terms in office.
Biden’s acts of forgiveness this week bring him up to 65 pardons and more than 1,600 commutations total, surpassing Trump’s commutation figures and nearing Obama’s, with several weeks still to go in his single term.
The president also hinted in his statement that more clemency or criminal justice moves could be coming down the pipeline in his final weeks as president.
39 pardons
Biden’s pardons are all for nonviolent offenders, many for drug offenses.
Some, like 79-year-old James Russell Stidd of Groveport, Ohio, had pleaded guilty to a nonviolent offense when he was 20........