Claims About Biden’s Number of Pardons and Commutations Are Misleading

A viral bar chart claims President Joe Biden has issued significantly more presidential pardons than any other president. “ARE BIDEN’S PARDONS UNDERMINING TRUST IN THE PRESIDENCY? He has issued more pardons than any president in history, raising a few eyebrows,” reads one post with more than 330,000 views. A similar image, using a pie chart to compare total pardons, is also spreading online.

Both charts show that Biden has issued more than 8,000 pardons and commutations since taking office in 2021, more than four times the number granted by President Barack Obama, and about 34 times more than President Donald Trump issued.

The image, however, is misleading and fails to include large numbers of pardons issued by previous presidents.

Under Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, a president can grant several distinct forms of clemency such as pardons, which fully forgive a crime and restore civil liberties to a person; commutations, which reduce a person’s sentence; and reprieves, which temporarily delay or suspend a punishment.

Presidential clemencies have been supported administratively by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney since 1894, which keeps records of all individuals granted clemency by a president. According to the office’s data, Biden has issued 65 pardons and 1,634 commutations since taking office—significantly higher than the 238 clemencies granted by Trump, but only the fifth highest of any president since 1900.

However, while the Office of the Pardon Attorney records most presidential clemencies, its data is not exhaustive. Several presidents, including Biden, have issued presidential proclamations pardoning broad classes of people or granted pardons through separate presidential boards, none of which are recorded by the Office of the Pardon Attorney.

Between 1974 and 1975, for example, President Gerald Ford’s Presidential Clemency Board granted pardons to more than 6,000 Vietnam-era draft dodgers and military deserters, and in 1977, President Jimmy Carter extended a blanket pardon to hundreds of thousands of Americans who avoided the Vietnam draft. Biden issued similar blanket pardons in 2022 and 2023 granting clemency to approximately 6,500 Americans convicted of simple marijuana possession and use violations.

These blanket pardons are counted inconsistently by the viral graph. While it includes the approximately 6,500 individuals pardoned by Biden’s marijuana pardons, it does not include the similar pardons issued by Ford or Carter. If none of these blanket pardons are included, the graph would look something like this:

On the other hand, if those blanket pardons are included—and only the 209,517 men formally accused of violating draft laws are included in Carter’s pardon—the chart shifts to this:

While Biden has granted more clemencies than many of his predecessors—mostly because of his December 12, 2024, clemency for nearly 1,500 individuals who were placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic—when consistent data is referenced, his use of the presidential pardon power is not out of line with prior administrations. Biden, however, could still issue more pardons before he leaves the White House on January 20. According to research by Pew, every president since Ford has issued pardons or commutations in their final days in office.

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