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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Biden will commute another 2,500 sentences, White House says

By Josh Wingrove Bloomberg

President Joe Biden will commute the sentences of nearly 2,500 nonviolent drug offenders whose sentences were longer than they’d receive under current standards, the White House said in a statement on Friday.

The list includes people who received longer sentences for offenses related to crack cocaine, as compared to powder cocaine, and cases where sentencing guidelines have since changed, according to the White House. The administration did not immediately release a list of the cases.

Biden’s Justice Department in 2022 instructed federal prosecutors to end sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine. In doing so, the department said at the time that disparity “has no basis in science, furthers no law enforcement purposes and drives unwarranted racial disparities in our criminal justice system.”

Some 79% of crack cocaine trafficking offenders sentenced in fiscal year 2023 were Black, compared to 22% for powder cocaine, according to U.S. Sentencing Commission data. White people, however, are more likely to use cocaine in their lifetime than any other group, according to the 2020 National Survey of Drug Use and Health.

The move is the latest clemency action by Biden as he prepares to leave office Monday, following decisions last month to convert the sentences of all but three federal death row inmates to life imprisonment, and commute the cases of nearly 1,500 other people.

Biden also issued a comprehensive pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, after repeatedly pledging that he wouldn’t do so.

Biden has granted clemency to more individuals than any other American president, and signaled he may yet add to that lengthy list in his final days in office. “I am proud of my record on clemency and will continue to review additional commutations and pardons,” the president said in the statement.

Among those under consideration for pardons are high-profile figures who President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to prosecute, including former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican who helped lead a congressional inquiry into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, who led the US response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden told USA Today this month he was watching Trump’s personnel moves during the transition before deciding. Presidents often save their most controversial pardons for their final hours in office.