Amnesties, Commutations and Pardons

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      Hunter Biden Likely Wouldn’t Qualify for a Pardon Recommendation Under Justice Dept. Criteria

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      Hunter Biden likely would not have qualified for a pardon recommendation under the criteria used by the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, which is tasked with identifying and vetting worthy clemency recipients. The office mostly recommends full pardons for people who have already served their sentences.Hunter Biden has not been sentenced, let alone served his sentence.Presidents have unchecked authority to grant clemency to anyone they choose, regardless of the pardon attorney’s recommendations.During his first term in office, President-elect Donald J. Trump routinely granted clemency to people who had not been recommended by the pardon attorney, including to some who had been previously rejected by the office and others who had yet to be sentenced.“Before Trump, reaching into the middle of an ongoing case to give a full pardon was almost unheard-of,” said Margaret Love, who ran the Justice Department’s clemency process from 1990 to 1997 as the United States pardon attorney.Mr. Biden has been under pressure from groups supporting prisoners’ rights to issue more clemency grants at the end of his term.In a statement issued after the announcement of Hunter Biden’s pardon, Zoë Towns, the executive director of the advocacy group FWD.us, said, “It’s time to prioritize clemency for thousands of vetted cases. The President has the opportunity to extend mercy to those serving disproportionately long sentences in federal prisons. We absolutely must turn our attention there.”The pardon attorney has received nearly 12,000 petitions for clemency during President Biden’s term.Mr. Biden has so far issued 157 clemency grants — 25 pardons, which wipe out convictions, and 132 commutations, which reduce prison sentences — according to a tally kept by the pardon attorney. It is not clear if the tally includes the pardon to his son.Mr. Biden has issued fewer clemency grants so far than the 238 — 144 pardons and 94 commutations — issued by Mr. Trump during his first administration. More

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      Biden Pardons His Son Hunter, Citing ‘Political Pressure’

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      President Biden blamed “political pressure” for the collapse of a plea deal for Hunter Biden, but it was the judge overseeing the case who questioned the agreement.Hunter Biden’s plea deal did fall apart in dramatic form at the last minute last year. But it did so after the judge overseeing the case at the time raised issues about its unusual construction, involving two separate agreements meant to work in tandem. That construction violated one of the basic tenets of federal guilty pleas: that any agreement not have any side deals.That the plea agreement fell apart once it faced basic questioning from the judge was an embarrassment to both the prosecutors and the defense lawyers who negotiated it. But that is a far cry from the president’s suggestion that the deal for Hunter Biden to avoid prison time and a felony conviction collapsed because of political pressure. More

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      Analysis: In Pardoning Hunter, Biden Sounds a Lot Like Trump

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      President Biden and President-elect Donald J. Trump now agree on one thing: The Biden Justice Department has been politicized.In pardoning his son Hunter Biden on Sunday night, the incumbent president sounded a lot like his successor in complaining about selective prosecution and political pressure, questioning the fairness of a system that Mr. Biden had until now long defended.“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Mr. Biden said in the statement announcing the pardon. “Here’s the truth,” he added. “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.”Mr. Biden’s decision to use the extraordinary power of executive clemency to wipe out his son’s convictions on gun and tax charges came despite repeated statements by him and his aides that he would not do so. Just last summer, after his son was convicted at trial, the president rejected the idea of a pardon and said that “I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process.” The statement he issued Sunday night made clear he did not accept the outcome nor respect the process.The pardon and Mr. Biden’s stated rationale for granting it will inevitably muddy the political waters as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office with plans to use the Justice Department and F.B.I. to pursue “retribution” against his political adversaries. Mr. Trump has long argued that the justice system has been “weaponized” against him and that he is the victim of selective prosecution, much like Mr. Biden has now said his son was.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Read Joe Biden’s Statement About Pardoning Hunter

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      President Biden issued the following statement on Sunday night.Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter.From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given noncriminal resolutions.It is clear that Hunter was treated differently. The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the courtroom — with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Names Charles Kushner as Pick for Ambassador to France

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      The announcement elevated Mr. Kushner, the father of President Donald J. Trump’s son-in-law and the recipient of a presidential pardon at the end of Mr. Trump’s first term.President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would name Charles Kushner, the wealthy real estate executive and father of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to serve as ambassador to France, handing one of his earliest and most high-profile ambassador appointments to a close family associate.The announcement was the latest step in a long-running exchange of political support between the two men. Mr. Kushner received a pardon from Mr. Trump in the final days of his first term for a variety of violations and then emerged as a major donor to Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign.“I am pleased to nominate Charles Kushner, of New Jersey, to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to France,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post announcing his choice. “He is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests.”Mr. Kushner, 70, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, a single count of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission in a case that became a lasting source of embarrassment for the family. As part of the plea, Mr. Kushner admitted to hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, a witness in a federal campaign finance investigation, and sending a videotape of the encounter to his sister.Mr. Trump granted Mr. Kushner clemency as part of a wave of 26 pardons he issued with roughly a month left in his first term, along with other close associates including Paul Manafort, his 2016 campaign chairman, and Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime ally and informal adviser.In addition to securing a pardon for himself, Mr. Kushner was instrumental in helping others seeking clemency elevate their cases, relying on his son as a bridge to help get applications in front of Mr. Trump.The case against Mr. Kushner was prosecuted by Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was then a U.S. attorney. Mr. Christie has since become a vocal critic of Mr. Trump’s and continued to describe Mr. Kushner’s transgressions as severe.Mr. Kushner served two years in prison before his release in 2006.While widely seen as one of the most prized ambassador positions, the role Mr. Kushner will be nominated for could be complicated by the at times standoffish position Mr. Trump took toward President Emmanuel Macron of France during his first term.As president, Mr. Trump also expressed support for Mr. Macron’s far-right challenger in the 2017 French presidential election, Marine Le Pen, whose hard-line stance against immigration Mr. Trump praised.Mr. Macron, who has been a staunch supporter of both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Ukraine, will serve until mid-2027. Mr. Trump has repeatedly questioned the value of Western support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, and has also publicly sparred with Mr. Macron over other contentious policy disagreements, including trade issues and the U.S. withdrawal from a nuclear deal with Iran. More

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      Proud Boys Leader Convicted of Sedition for Role in Jan. 6 Attack Asks Trump for Pardon

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      A leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted last year of seditious conspiracy for his role in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, on Wednesday asked President-elect Donald J. Trump for a pardon.The Proud Boys leader, Joseph Biggs, who is serving a 17-year prison term, was the first of dozens of Proud Boys members found guilty in connection with Jan. 6 to formally request clemency for the part he played in the Capitol attack. Other high-ranking members of the extremist organization, including its former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison in his Jan. 6 case, have also signaled they intend to ask Mr. Trump for pardons.Mr. Biggs’s lawyer, Norm Pattis, sent a letter to Mr. Trump on Wednesday requesting clemency for his client that opened by praising Mr. Trump for his “re-election to the presidency.” Mr. Pattis quickly pivoted to asking the president-elect for “a complete pardon” for Mr. Biggs, suggesting that exonerating Mr. Biggs would serve “the broader public interest” in much the same way that the clemency granted to thousands of Confederate supporters helped to heal the nation in the years that followed the Civil War.“These are divisive times,” Mr. Pattis wrote. And he brought up the 2020 election, which many of Mr. Trump’s supporters were challenging on the day of the attack on the Capitol. “Suspicions and bitterness about the election lingers to this day,” he added.“A pardon of Mr. Biggs,” Mr. Pattis went on, “will help close that wound and inspire confidence in the future.”While Mr. Trump repeatedly promised during his recent campaign to pardon the more than 1,500 people charged so far in connection with the Capitol attack, his transition team has not yet put in place a formal policy about how to handle clemency requests like Mr. Biggs’s.Many of the rioters, their families and some outside activists who have supported their cause have been pushing Mr. Trump and his allies to create a formal protocol that would offer a broad version of amnesty to the defendants.Those who support such a move have privately expressed concern about hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters deluging the president-elect’s administration with pardon requests. They would rather see a systemic approach to the issue of pardons worked out in advance of Mr. Trump taking office. More

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      Jan. 6 Defendants Are Already Angling for Pardons From Trump

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      The president-elect said during the campaign that he would grant clemency to some of those who took part in the assault by his supporters on the Capitol nearly four years ago.The legal consequences of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s victory start with the likelihood that the cases against him will sputter out but could also extend to the cases of hundreds of his supporters who are being — or have been — prosecuted for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump repeatedly promised to pardon some of the 1,500 people charged in connection with Jan. 6, sometimes suggesting that his clemency might extend to leaders of far-right groups like the Proud Boys and to other defendants who assaulted police officers.It remains unclear whether or how fully he will fulfill those vows. But should he issue wide-ranging pardons, it would amount to a repudiation of the largest criminal investigation ever undertaken by the Justice Department and damage, perhaps fatally, efforts by prosecutors to seek accountability for a violent mob attack on the lawful transfer of presidential power.Already, some Jan. 6 defendants are excitedly expressing hope that Mr. Trump might strip them of convictions or free them from prison when he takes office.Only hours after the election was called for Mr. Trump early Wednesday, one convicted rioter, Christopher Carnell, asked a federal judge to push back a hearing in his case, saying he “expected” to receive clemency.“Throughout his campaign, President-elect Trump made multiple clemency promises to the Jan. 6 defendants, particularly to those who were nonviolent participants,” Mr. Carnell’s lawyers wrote. “Mr. Carnell, who was an 18-year-old nonviolent entrant into the Capitol on Jan. 6, is expecting to be relieved of the criminal prosecution that he is currently facing when the new administration takes office.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nicaragua Releases 135 Political Prisoners in Deal Brokered by U.S. Government

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      Among those freed under the deal brokered by the U.S. government were 13 affiliated with Mountain Gateway, an American evangelical church.Nicaragua released 135 political prisoners — including 13 people affiliated with an American evangelical church — on humanitarian grounds on Thursday in a deal brokered by the U.S. government, the White House announced.The prisoners were sent to Guatemala, where they will be processed as refugees.The prisoner release included 11 pastors from Mountain Gateway, a Texas-based evangelical missionary church that the Nicaraguan government had accused of using its nonprofit status as a cover to purchase luxury goods, property and land.The group also included Catholic laypeople, students and others whom President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and the first lady and vice president, Rosario Murillo, considered a threat to their authoritarian rule, Jake Sullivan, the National Security adviser, said in a statement.“The United States again calls on the government of Nicaragua to immediately cease the arbitrary arrest and detention of its citizens for merely exercising their fundamental freedoms,” Mr. Sullivan added.Once in Guatemala, the former prisoners will be offered the opportunity to apply for legal ways to rebuild their lives in the United States or in other countries, Mr. Sullivan said. The Biden administration expressed thanks to the president of Guatemala, Bernado Arévalo, for his government’s cooperation in the deal and for “championing democratic freedom.”The Mountain Gateway pastors were arrested in December after completing an eight-city evangelical crusade that cost $4 million and was attended by nearly a million people. The pastors were sentenced to 12 or 15 years in prison, and fined a total of nearly $1 billion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More