Washington – President Biden issued a handful of pardons on his final full day in office, granting clemency to individuals he said have “made significant contributions to bettering their communities” as his presidency nears sunset.
“America is a country built on the promise of second chances,” Mr Biden said in a statement. He said he has used his pardon power to “make that promise a reality” with more personal pardons and commutations than any other president in history. – a record he made after his sentence was commuted about 2,500 people On Friday.
The president on Sunday granted clemency to five people, most of whom were convicted of non-violent drug crimes, and commuted the sentences of two men whom he said had shown “repentance, rehabilitation and “Liberation” has been demonstrated.
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Among those pardoned was Marcus Mosiah Garvey, who was given a posthumous pardon. Garvey was a black nationalist who was convicted of mail fraud in the 1920s and had his sentence commuted by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927. Mr Biden also pardoned immigrant rights lawyer Ravi Ragbir and criminal justice reform advocate Kemba Smith Pradia. And the President granted pardon to Don Scott, who became first black speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates last year.
In an interview with CBS News, Scott said he received a call from the White House confirming the pardon shortly after 7 a.m. Sunday.
Scott, who served seven years in prison on drug charges, tearfully said he was “so grateful because I don't take anything for granted.”
“I think there are a lot of people like me who deserve a second chance and there are people in power who won't do that, who won't use the power that they have,” Scott said. “I'm grateful that President Biden used it.”
Mr Biden's pardon in recent days comes after the president carried out the largest single-day pardon in modern history in December about 1,500 people And about 40 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes were pardoned. Earlier that month, he had also issued clemency for his son, Hunter Biden.
The move comes as questions widen over whether Mr Biden would issue preemptive pardons to officials who have been the targets of President-elect Donald Trump and who could be prosecuted in the new administration. Trump will take oath at noon on Monday.