WASHINGTON

Obama grants 330 more commutations, bringing total to a record 1,715

Gregory Korte
USA TODAY
President Obama speaks during his final presidential news conference Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — President Obama commuted the sentences of 330 more federal inmates Thursday, capping an unprecedented clemency effort that has now released 1,715 prisoners — more than any other president in history.

The clemency grants announced on Obama's last full day in office set a one-day record.

"Proud to make this one of my final actions as President. America is a nation of second chances, and 1,715 people deserved that shot," Obama tweeted Thursday.

The clemency initiative, which began in 2014, was targeted at drug dealers who received mandatory-minimum sentences during the War on Drugs from the 1980s to the 2000s.

But the effort ultimately fell far short of the 10,000 clemency grants former attorney general Eric Holder predicted when the initiative began. And while Obama set a record for granting commutations, he also set a record for denials. As of the end of 2016, he had denied 14,485 petitions and closed another 4,242 without action — an overall grant rate of 5.9%, a couple of percentage points higher than many of his predecessors.

"The president set out to reinvigorate clemency, and he has done just that," White House counsel Neil Eggleston said in a statement.

It's unclear how big of a backlog in clemency cases President-elect Donald Trump will inherit. But Justice Department officials had promised to give an up-or-down determination on every clemency initiative case it received by August.

“I’m proud to say we kept that promise," Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates said in a statement. "This undertaking was as enormous as it was unprecedented, and I am incredibly grateful to the teams of people who devoted their time and energy to the project since its inception."

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Obama's final list of clemency grants included no more full pardons, meaning his final pardon tally will stand at 212 — fewer than any modern president except Presidents George H.W. Bush, who granted 74 and George W. Bush, who granted 189. (It was the younger Bush who gave Obama this advice in the limo ride to the Capitol on his Inauguration Day eight years ago. "Announce a pardon policy early on, and stick to it.")

Before that, it was the fewest of any full-term president since James Buchanan's 108, said pardon scholar P.S. Ruckman Jr. "The word 'pathetic' comes to mind," he said.

The grants on Thursday also did not include any of the more high-profile political cases, like former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and former congressman Chaka Fattah, all serving time on corruption charges.

With Thursday's action, the Clemency Project 2014 also closes its doors. The coalition of defense attorneys who had agreed to help inmates with their cases says it completed work on all the applications it received.

"Of course we'd be delighted to continue, but we have to wait to see whether the next president says whether he will or will not pursue this," he said.

President-elect Trump hasn't talked about his pardon policy, and his nominee for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions, defended the mandatory minimum sentences that Obama commuted with his actions.

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