To get an idea of ​​who President Joe Biden could choose to pardon him before he leaves office on Jan. 20 to make room Kamala Harris or Donald Trumphelps recall and analyze the controversial pardons of past presidents and review the process that brings cases to the Oval Office.

With the election and administration transition fast approaching, Biden and his staff should put their last fixes on a pardon list. The biggest question looming over this selection is whether Hunter Biden will be first in line. On September 5, the president’s son pleaded guilty without a plea agreement in a Los Angeles federal court to a nine-count indictment that included three felonies and six tax crimes. That admission, combined with a June 11 federal conviction in Wilmington, Delaware, on three felony weapons charges could result in significant prison time.

During his appearance at the G7 Summit last June after his son’s gun conviction, Joe Biden went on the record promising to let justice take its course without pardoning his offspring. However, there are more options than the binary possibility of yes or no regarding full legal forgiveness.

Graham G. Dodds is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University. Writer of the year 2021 Mass Pardons in America: Rebellion, Presidential Amnesty, and Reconciliation from Columbia University Press draws attention to the relationship between pardons and clemency.

“There is a distinct difference between a pardon, which wipes the slate clean as if the crime never happened, and clemency, which leaves a finding of wrongdoing on the books while mitigating punishments,” Dodds said. “Obama granted clemency to Chelsea Manning, court-martialed for espionage. The message was: “What he did was wrong, but he served a few years. She’s been through a lot. We will release her from prison, but her conviction will remain on her record. This is an option that could keep Hunter out of jail.”

Across the aisle, Dodds points out that former President George W. Bush granted clemency to Dick Cheney’s aide Scooter Libby.

Beyond analyzing the Hunter Biden situation, Dodds said he thinks predicting who a president might pardon can be a fool’s errand.

“There is a process for people applying for pardons, so one might think there would be some predictability,” he explained. “But presidential pardon power is virtually unlimited, so presidents don’t have to go through any process. As a result, there have been more than a few shocking pardons over the years.”

He cites Ronald Reagan’s pardon of NASCAR star Junior Johnson for his moonshine conviction, Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich and Trump’s pardon of soldiers convicted of war crimes as some of the biggest recent surprises.

If Joe Biden decides to operate along party lines, the Democratic Party has offered a collection of pardon candidates in recent years. Former Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was convicted of 16 criminal charges in July following a two-month corruption trial. The president could pardon the longtime Democratic member of Congress before his sentencing in late January.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams faces five federal charges, including wire fraud and bribery, related to his 2021 campaign. He could be waiting a long time for a pardon from the Biden administration after blaming his arrest of the president and vice president after challenging them on immigration issues.

If those examples don’t appeal, former Rep. TJ Cox, a Democrat from California, faces 15 counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of money laundering, one count of financial fraud and one count of campaign contribution fraud. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and his wife were indicted on 14 criminal charges, including illegal foreign influence, bribery and money laundering.

According to Professor Jeffrey Crouch of American University, the tradition of pardoning is as old as the presidency itself, but its zero-hour enforcement — the use of pardon or clemency powers when there is little risk of significant political backlash — is a more modern issue.

“Several recent presidents of both political parties have granted clemency while being shielded from direct political consequences at the ballot box,” Crouch said. “George HW Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger and five other Iran-Contra figures on Christmas Eve 1992. Bill Clinton granted conditional clemency to members of Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña, a Puerto Rican nationalist group, despite opposition from federal agencies weighing against clemency .”

Crouch, author of the 2009 book Presidential pardon power of the University of Kansas Press, explained that most recent presidents have issued clemency grants based on applications filed with the Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney.

“After an investigation, the president gets a recommendation, which is usually followed (by the White House),” he said. “President Trump was an exception. He worked mostly out of the pardon attorney’s office because only 25 of the 238 clemency grants went through the regular process.”

With Trump mentioned, Dodds added what he considers a “funny hypothetical.”

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“Suppose that in the waning days of his presidency, Joe Biden should pardon Trump ‘for all crimes against the United States that he has committed or may have committed or participated in,'” Dodds said. — This is the language Gerald Ford used in pardoning Richard Nixon. Ford’s apparent rationale was to avoid the spectacle of a former president facing criminal charges, which Ford considered so inappropriate and undignified that it should be avoided.”

Noting that America experienced exactly that half a century later, Dodds predicted that Trump would most likely respond to such a pardon by insisting that he had done nothing wrong.

“Then Biden might say, ‘Yeah, well, sure you didn’t.’

John Lewinsky, MFA, is a writer based in Milwaukee.