Democrats and mainstream media make for a funny couple. Neither has a sense for history and both try to distort it to serve their needs. Case-in-point: presidential clemency. The reaction from the left to President Trump’s pardons and commutations yesterday would make one think he’s a criminal’s best friend. They painted it as “abuse of power” (their new favorite accusation after “racist” and “dangerous” failed miserably) and put out more negative stories about it in one day than they did for President Obama’s entire eight-year occupation of the White House.
This is, of course, expected as both Democrats and mainstream media will attack President Trump for any action, word, or Tweet. If he personally came up with a cure for the coronavirus they would accuse him of colluding with the Chinese to influence the 2020 election. In total, President Trump has granted clemency to 26 people. How does that compare to previous presidents.
Over the last 44 years, the numbers have been pretty consistent with two notable exceptions. President G.H.W. Bush was low with 77 in is single term, followed by his son who had 200. President Reagan more than doubled that with 406, followed closely by President Clinton’s 459. Though only serving one term, President Carted was able to out-pardon them all with 566.
President Trump’s 26 definitely don’t seem like a lot when we look at some of his predecessors. Combined, they have delivered 1734 pardons, commutations, or remissions.
Oh, did I miss someone? It makes sense that mainstream media didn’t report much about President Obama’s granting of clemency because it would have kept them extremely busy. He was able to beat the combined totals of his five predecessors and his successor with 1927 pardons and or commutations. To put that into perspective, that’s granting clemency to someone every day-and-a-half for the entirety of his stint as president.
Wow. . . Obama pardoned or commuted sentences of nearly 2,000 people. . . Trump? 19 pardons, 7 commutations. https://t.co/idgvBPIAQN
— Ned Ryun (@nedryun) February 19, 2020
President Trump has granted clemency to 26 people in over three years and mainstream media “journalists” were fainting in newsrooms across America. President Obama granted clemency to over 77 times as many with nary a peep from the media.
