Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Quite a day....
January, 2025 is going to go down as the most important month in the history of federal clemency, and yesterday was probably the most significant single day for clemency since the Nixon pardon.
First, while he was still president, Joe Biden issued preemptive pardons to members of his family and others he feared would be prosecuted, including Anthony Fauci and Liz Cheney. He also commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier.
After being sworn in, Donald Trump granted commutations of sentence to 14 leaders of the events on January 6, 2021, including top people in the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. Everyone else who has been charged-- between 1500-1600 individuals-- received a full pardon. You can read the whole statement here.
Anyways... here is what I told The Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor.
