The Wall Street Journal reported last week that White House officials are considering a plan for President Trump to issue 250 pardons in the next several months in commemoration of the USA’s 250th birthday (nominally July 4, 2026, although argument can be made for other dates).
The plan is still reportedly in preliminary discussions, and no one has said that the action would be solely pardon (the forgiveness of a conviction) as opposed to commutation of sentence (reduction or elimination of imprisonment, fine or restitution without wiping out the underlying conviction).
Trump, himself a convicted felon (although still on appeal in New York state court), has granted clemency more than 2,000 times in his last term and so far this term. The number is only half of the clemencies granted by President Biden, who commuted the sentences of people home on the CARES Act after the incoming Trump Administration signaled that those people would be returned to prison, pardoned people convicted of marijuana possession offenses in the past (none of whom was in prison when the pardon issued), and commuted death sentences of 38 of the 40 people on federal death row (changing the sentences to life in prison without chance of release).
Trump’s clemencies, although fewer in number than Biden’s, have been more controversial. Biden caught flak for pardoning his son and his family. But Trump’s outright pardon on Inauguration Day of 1,500 January 6th rioters, followed by pardons of people connected to his movement or related to wealthy donors to his campaign, have “garnered criticism from both sides of the aisle and encouraged some high-profile candidates to openly campaign to have their convictions or alleged crimes wiped away with a signature,” the Wall Street Journal said.
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