(Washington) Three days before leaving power, Joe Biden announced on Friday that he had commuted the record number of nearly 2,500 sentences of those convicted of non-violent drug offenses, claiming to be the American president who has granted the most pardons and switchings.
Posted at 7:17 a.m.
The use of this presidential prerogative is justified by the fact that those convicted “endure long sentences, disproportionate to the sentences they would have to endure today with regard to the practice of law and jurisprudence”, according to a White House statement quoting the president.
Joe Biden had already granted 39 pardons and 1,500 commutations in December and commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 sentenced to death by federal justice.
The democratic leader, a practicing Catholic, wishes, through this “act of clemency, to bring comfort to individuals sentenced to long sentences [de prison] based on a distinction which no longer exists between crack and cocaine.
Joe Biden also criticizes “an outdated toughening of sentences handed down in matters of drug-related crime”.
While he will leave the Oval Office to Republican billionaire Donald Trump on Monday, the Democratic president also warned that he would “continue to examine additional commutations and pardons”, therefore before January 20.
-The White House press release did not name any names, while the media have been speculating for weeks on the possibility that Mr. Biden would preemptively pardon elected officials and senior officials threatened with legal action once Mr. Trump is inaugurated. 47e president of the United States.
American presidents decide on hundreds of pardons and commutations during their mandate, with a notable acceleration just before leaving.
At the beginning of December, Joe Biden reneged on his commitment by pardoning his son Hunter Biden, who was awaiting his sentences in two cases of illegal possession of a firearm and tax evasion.
His predecessor and soon-to-be successor Donald Trump also pardoned in December 2020 the father of his son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, Charles Kushner, sentenced in 2004 to two years in prison for tax embezzlement. The latter was appointed ambassador to Paris.
Bill Clinton (1993-2001) pardoned in 2001, on the last day of his mandate, his half-brother Roger Clinton, convicted of cocaine possession in 1985.
Both Mr. Kushner and Mr. Clinton had completed their prison sentences at the time of the presidential pardon.
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