Many Democrats on Capitol Hill roundly panned President Joe Biden’s decision to give a sweeping pardon to his son Hunter Biden, but some clemency groups and progressives are taking the opportunity to ramp up pressure on the outgoing president to issue as many pardons as he can with 48 days left in office.
Biden currently has the lowest presidential pardon record of any president in modern history, with a total of 25 pardons granted, according to the Justice Department. While it is normal for presidents to wait until the end of their administrations to grant clemency to larger — or more controversial — groups, Biden’s numbers are still lower than previous Democratic presidents at similar periods, the data shows.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who has been leading congressional efforts for Biden to use his clemency powers more broadly, told NOTUS in a statement that since Biden was using his pardon authority for Hunter “in response to what he saw as an injustice of the legal system,” he should now extend that further.