Here’s a look at how recent presidents have used the pardon power in comparison

President Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday evening to pardon his counterpart Hunter Biden and exempt him from the possibility of prison on federal gun and tax convictions sent shockwaves across the political world.

The move not only marked a clear reversal of Biden’s earlier promise not to spare his son, but also furthered the unprecedented dynamic between the father-son duo after Hunter became the first child of a sitting US president to be convicted of a crime became summer.

In the United States, however, the president has long exercised his pardon power – a broad power expressly given in the Constitution to the US commanders in chief and applicable to federal crimes, except in cases of impeachment. And Sunday’s decision is far from the only time its use has drawn controversy or attention. (President Gerald Ford’s pardon of President Richard Nixon is among the most famous and controversial presidential pardons.)

While Hunter can be considered the closest family member of a president to receive such an award, Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump also used this authority to release relatives as well. Clinton pardoned his half-brother, who was behind bars on drug charges, while Trump acquitted the father of his son-in-law Charles Kushner, whom the president-elect announced over the weekend as his choice for ambassador to France in his second term.

Although Trump famously issued a flurry of pardons and commutations in his first term in the hours before leaving office — 74 and 70, respectively — he granted far fewer pardons overall than his predecessor, former President Barack Obama.

According to Justice Department statistics, Obama approved 1,927 requests for pardons or clemency during his two terms in office, more than eight times the 238 approved by Trump in his first four years in the White House. Of the more than 36,500 petitions Obama received during his time in office, the former president granted more than 5%, according to DOJ figures. The president-elect approved less than 2% of the appropriations received during his first term.

George W. Bush was the only former president in the past five-plus decades to approve a similar percentage of petitions to Trump, about 2%.

Clinton approved more than 450, or 6%, of petitions during his time in office, and former President Ronald Reagan approved 406, or nearly 12%, of petitions. According to the DOJ, former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ford and Nixon granted more than 20% of the petitions received during their terms in office.

As of October 17, 2024, when the Justice Department last updated its numbers, Biden had granted 25 pardon requests and 132 commutation requests. Overall, these numbers represent only 1.3% of the petitions he received during his term, a percentage well below that of his predecessors.

However, as has been the case with Trump and others, it is not uncommon for a president to issue a pardon list in the final days or hours before leaving office, something White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. to reporters should not rule out Monday.

“This usually happens towards the end, and so the president goes through this process and thinks about this process,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday who were traveling with the president on Air Force One to Angola. “I won’t pre-empt him, but you can expect further announcements.”