On November 25th, the President pardoned General Michael Flynn who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russian contacts during the Russian investigation. Many Americans believe that Flynn was targeted politically and the sentence was unwarranted.
Representative Adam Schiff retorted immediately on Twitter saying, “Donald Trump has repeatedly abused the pardon power to reward friends and protect those who covered up for him. This time he pardons Michael Flynn, who lied to hide his dealings with the Russians. It’s no surprise that Trump would go out as he came in — Crooked to the end.” The response is not surprising considering that Schiff led the partisan assault on General Flynn in 2016, so the matter is personal. Every presidential pardon is controversial on some level. However, Trump has not “abused the pardon power” in the least.
Particularly entertaining, is the reaction from the left suggesting that the President is a horrible leader because he pardoned a ‘criminal’ – as if it were possible to pardon someone who is not a criminal – after all, that is the definition of a pardon.
Also entertaining, are so-called news sites that exclaim loudly about the list of pardons from the President as being significant in size. The nonprofit ‘journalism’ site, Mother Jones, used the headline “A Shockingly Long List of Trump’s Controversial Pardons,” for example. In the article, they list 20 pardons. But which presidents gave out the largest number of “get out of jail free cards” during their administration?
There are 28 pardons listed on the DOJ’s website attributed to President Trump. Wikipedia says 25. (Either way, Mother Jones missed a few.) Comparatively, President Obama awarded clemency to a total of 1927 people during his presidency. Granted, Obama had 8 years for those pardons and Trump has only had 4 – but Trump has executed pardons approximately once every two months – Obama on the other hand pardoned nearly 4 people every 3 days of his presidency – more than one pardon a day while in office. Only three other Presidents have granted a larger number: F. D. Roosevelt, 3,687; Wilson, 2,480; and Truman, 2,044.
Here is a list of presidential pardons by president: (please note, none of those pardons include the 1-2 live turkeys pardoned each year of each presidency, as it tradition in the US before Thanksgiving day.)
| Pardons | President |
| 3687 | Franklin Roosevelt |
| 2480 | Woodrow Wilson |
| 2044 | Harry S. Truman |
| 1927 | Barack Obama |
| 1545 | Calvin Coolidge |
| 1385 | Herbert Hoover |
| 1332 | Ulysses S. Grant |
| 1187 | Lyndon B. Johnson |
| 1157 | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| 1107 | Gover Cleveland |
| 981 | Theodore Roosevelt |
| 926 | Richard M. Nixon |
| 918 | William McKinley |
| 893 | Rutherford B. Hayes |
| 800 | Warren G. Harding |
| 758 | William H. Taft |
| 654 | Andrew Johnson |
| 613 | Benjamin Harris |
| 575 | John F. Kennedy |
| 566 | Jimmy Carter |
| 459 | Bill Clinton |
| 419 | James Monroe |
| 409 | Gerald R. Ford |
| 406 | Ronald Reagan |
| 386 | Andrew Jackson |
| 343 | Abraham Lincoln |
| 337 | Chester. A. Arthur |
| 268 | James K. Polk |
| 209 | John Tyler |
| 200 | George W. Bush |
| 196 | James Madison |
| 183 | John Quincy Adams |
| 170 | Millard Fillmore |
| 168 | Martin Van Buren |
| 150 | James Buchanan |
| 142 | Franklin Pierce |
| 119 | Thomas Jefferson |
| 77 | George H. W. Bush |
| 38 | Zachary Taylor |
| 28 so far | Donald J. Trump |
| 21 | John Adams |
| 16 | George Washington |
| 0 | William Henry Harrison |
| 0 | James A. Garfield |
