Biden grants 39 presidential pardons and commutes 1,500 sentences

US President Joe Biden granted presidential pardons to 39 Americans convicted of non-violent crimes and commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 more, including several convicted of multimillion-dollar fraud schemes.

The White House described it as the largest number of presidential clemency acts issued in a single day. It comes after Biden made the decision to pardon his own criminally convicted son, Hunter Biden.

In announcing the move, Biden said those pardoned had “demonstrated successful rehabilitation and a commitment to making their communities stronger and safer.”

The US Constitution decrees that a president has the broad “power to grant pardons and pardons for crimes against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”

The White House released a pardon list of 39 people that it said had committed a “nonviolent crime” or a “nonviolent drug crime.” He did not mention the specific crimes for which they were convicted.

Several of those pardoned were people who had been released from prison. Many were veterans or had become community leaders or advocates.

The White House described one of the pardon recipients as a 49-year-old Virginia resident who was convicted of a drug crime at age 21. After serving his sentence, he earned a college degree, had a successful career in the U.S. Army and Air Force and volunteered for charities that support veterans.

He is known “by those who know him as exceptionally hard-working, dedicated and trustworthy,” the White House said in a statement that offered brief biographies of all those who had received clemency.

The 1,499 commuted sentences include people who were placed on home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as those whose sentences Biden deemed too long due to outdated laws.

They have “proven that they deserve a second chance,” Biden said of those whose sentences he had commuted.

Biden promised “more action in the coming weeks.”

Among those whose sentences were commuted was Timothy McGinn, 76, a former stockbroker convicted in 2013 of defrauding hundreds of clients out of millions of dollars, wiping out the savings of many of his victims.

Another person who received clemency, former Ohio county commissioner Jimmy Dimora, was convicted in 2012 of accepting $450,000 (£355,000) in bribes that included lavish trips to Las Vegas, prostitutes and a stone pizza oven.

Also on the list were Paul Daugerdas, convicted of overseeing fraudulent tax shelters in 2014, and Elaine Lovett, convicted of defrauding the federal Medicare health insurance program as part of a $26 million scheme in 2017.

The president will leave the White House on January 20, 2025, when his successor Donald Trump takes office.

Previously, Biden had a record of pardoning fewer people than most presidents in modern American history.

However, in the past he had already granted some categorical pardons. These are pardons granted to a large number of people who fall into a category defined by the president.

In October 2022, Biden granted a full pardon for those convicted of simple marijuana possession and later expanded it to include other marijuana-related crimes.

Earlier this year, Biden granted another full pardon to military personnel and veterans who were convicted of a crime based on their sexual orientation.

Biden’s decision earlier this month to pardon his son, Hunter, continued a trend of presidents on both sides of the American political divide, including Trump, granting clemency to people close to them.

The younger Biden was facing sentencing in two criminal cases for tax fraud and firearms crimes.

The move has proven controversial, as the outgoing president previously ruled out doing so. But he claimed the cases against his son were politically motivated.

Biden has also weighed granting preemptive pardons to prominent critics of his successor Trump in a bid to protect them from retaliation after the president-elect takes office, but is reportedly concerned about the precedent it would set.

In a separate development Thursday, a former FBI informant pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, which had led to investigations into the Biden family.

Alexander Smirnov acknowledged that he made up “fabrications” about Biden and his son taking bribes from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Republicans in Congress seized on the claim as evidence of corruption.

Trump granted 237 acts of clemency during his first term in the White House, according to the Pew Research Center. These included 143 pardons and 94 commuted sentences.

Many were in an uproar before he left office.

In recent days, Trump has pledged to grant pardons on his first day in office to people who were convicted of participating in the January 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, in which his supporters attempted to block the certification of the Biden’s election victory.

He said this week that the pardons would be for “non-violent” people.

“A vast majority should not be in prison and have suffered gravely,” he said in an interview with Time magazine on Thursday.