The top Democrat in the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, is calling on President Joe Biden to use his clemency powers for more people in the federal prison system. The request comes just days after the president’s highly controversial announcement that he was pardoning his son Hunter Biden. 

What You Need To Know

  • The top Democrat in the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, is calling on President Joe Biden to use his clemency powers for more people in the federal prison system. The request comes just days after the president’s highly controversial announcement that he was pardoning his son, Hunter Biden 
  • Biden’s Sunday evening announcement that he signed a sweeping pardon for his son, who was facing federal felony gun and tax convictions, rattled Washington, sparking outrage from Republicans and criticisms from some in his own party
  • Amid the fallout, some in Democratic circles have similarly called on the president to expand use of his pardon power to those beyond his family, such as Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass.

"During his final weeks in office, President Biden should exercise the high level of compassion he has consistently demonstrated throughout his life, including toward his son, and pardon on a case-by-case basis the working-class Americans in the federal prison system whose lives have been ruined by unjustly aggressive prosecutions for nonviolent offenses,” Jeffries wrote in a statement. 

In his statement, the New York Democrat did not name anyone he specifically thought should be cleared but generally mentioned people who have been “aggressively prosecuted and harshly sentenced for nonviolent offenses, often without the benefit of adequate legal representation.” 

“Countless lives, families and communities have been adversely impacted, particularly in parts of Appalachia, Urban America and the Heartland,” he wrote. 

Biden’s Sunday evening announcement that he signed a sweeping pardon for his son, who was facing federal felony gun and tax convictions, rattled Washington, sparking outrage from Republicans and criticisms from some in his own party.

Amid the fallout, some in Democratic circles have similarly called on the president to expand use of his pardon power to those beyond his family. In a statement Monday, Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., for instance, urged Biden to consider pardoning “those in federal custody with unjustified sentencing disparities, the elderly and chronically ill, people on death row, women punished for crimes of their abusers, and many, many more.”

“President Biden used his pardon authority last night in response to what he saw as an injustice of the legal system,” Pressley wrote. “In the remaining days of his presidency, I have called on President Biden to use his clemency power to change the lives of families across this nation—families who are disproportionately Black and brown, with loved ones behind the wall, suffering from injustices of the legal system.”

Pressley, whose father was incarcerated for much of her childhood, was joined by fellow Democratic Reps. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania last month, before Biden announced the pardon of Hunter, in asking the president via letter and press conference to exercise his clemency authority before he leaves office. 

According to statistics from the Justice Department, as of Oct. 17 2024, Biden had granted 25 petitions for a pardon and 132 for a commutation. That is less than the two previous presidents, President-elect Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama. 

However, in the past, presidents, including Trump, have used their final days or hours in office to grant a flurry of pardons. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday to expect more announcements in the realm before Biden leaves the White House in January.