Former President Biden granted more acts of clemency than any previous chief executive on record, finds a Pew Research Center analysis of Department of Justice data. Biden granted 4,245 acts of clemency in four years. That far exceeds the total of any other president since the beginning of the 20th century, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, who granted 3,796 such acts during his 12 years in office. Biden granted 29% of the clemency requests he received. That was the highest percentage of any president since Richard Nixon, who granted 36% of the petitions he received. Biden received far more requests than Nixon – 14,867 versus 2,591.
The DOJ data do not count clemency granted to entire classes of people by proclamation, such as the actions taken by Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford to forgive thousands of Vietnam War-era draft dodgers. Biden granted clemency this way, too: In October 2022 and December 2023, he granted pardons by proclamation to people convicted of some marijuana crimes. The commutation total includes 80 pardons.
The number of Biden pardons is the second lowest on record; only George H.W. Bush granted fewer (74).
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