Biden White House poised to announce historic preemptive pardons as pressure mounts
Sources tell theGrio that the White House General Counsel's Office is working with the DOJ's Office of Pardon Attorney on potential pardons.
Some pardon announcements are expected in the coming days from the Biden White House.
Sources told theGrio the Biden administration is working around the clock on a two-pronged pardon issuance before President Joe Biden leaves office at noon Eastern on Jan. 20, 2025, when Donald Trump is sworn in as the next president of the United States.
The two-pronged pardon announcement will consist of the regular pardon process that typically happens at the end of a presidential term. However, Biden will also issue preemptive pardons, something historic that has never been done before.
The White House General Counsel’s office, along with the Office of the Pardon Attorney of the Department of Justice, are sifting through how to make things happen. Potential sweeping pardons are being discussed as names like Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney have drawn the ire of President-elect Donald Trump, who said in a recent “Meet the Press” interview that they should be “jailed.”
Thompson and Cheney served as chair and vice chair, respectively, of the Jan. 6th Select Committee, which investigated Trump’s actions related to the violent and deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Concerns about retaliation via incarceration from Trump and his allies have also swirled around Dr. Anthony Fauci, who Trump and Republicans have attacked for his role in leading the nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Biden administration is said to be taking these potential threats and preemptive pardon requests seriously. A high-ranking Justice Department official, who wished not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, acknowledged to theGrio, “We are not done yet.”
Michelle West, who has served 32 years of a life sentence in prison, is one of several incarcerated people who advocates are urging President Biden to grant his pardon and clemency powers. Prison reform activists Kim Kardashian and Kemba Smith hope the administration will commute West’s federal prison sentence.
Michelle West’s commutation request was filed with the Office of the Pardon Attorney in June 2022. An attorney for West has requested that her prison time be reduced. No pardon request was applied for in this case.
West was convicted of aiding and abetting a drug-related homicide. The man who confessed on the stand that he committed the murder offered information on West and received no prison time for the murder.
Kemba Smith, who was incarcerated for a non-violent drug conviction, supports the commutation for Michelle West. The two became close friends while serving time together in federal prison. Smith told theGrio that West is the last of the group she was incarcerated with who is still swept up in the criminal justice system.
As Kemba Smith is pushing heavily for her friend’s sentence to be commuted by President Biden, she is also petitioning for a pardon from Biden for herself related to her 1994 drug conviction. Then-President Bill Clinton granted her clemency after she served six and half years for drug crimes she said she did not commit.
Smith, whose highly publicized story was made into a film, said Michelle gave her a gold chain with a cross pendant when she left prison.
“I told her I would give it back to her when she came home,” she told theGrio.
Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that, between 1980 and 2019, the number of women incarcerated has increased by more than 700%.
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