President Joe Biden is considering commuting the sentences of “most, if not all” federal death row inmates in the country, according to a new report.
The news comes via a shocking Wall Street Journal column citing sources close to the President who believe a final decision on the matter could be announced by Christmas Day.
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The Journal notes Biden’s history of being a “devout Catholic,” an attribute which only emerges when the President needs to convince people he is motivated by deep religious beliefs despite being a devout advocate of abortion.
President Biden is considering commuting the sentences of most, if not all, of the 40 men on the federal government’s death row, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would frustrate President-elect Donald Trump’s ability to resume the rapid pace of executions that marked his first term.
A broad coalition of religious and civil-rights groups has been pressing Biden to take the step, and the effort gained momentum earlier this month after Pope Francis, in his weekly address, prayed for the commutation of America’s condemned inmates. If their death sentences were commuted, the prisoners, all convicted of murder, would serve life without parole.
The report adds that Biden has been pushed in this direction by Attorney General Merrick Garland – who doggedly pursued January 6th protesters and anti-abortion grandmothers praying outside of clinics with maximum criminal penalties – to commute all but a handful of terrorism and hate crimes cases.
That said, the angle at which Biden weighs the matter based on his deeply embedded Catholicism seems to indicate that a blanket commutation might be possible.
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The news comes as outgoing ‘Squad’ members, Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO) have vehemently insisted the President should flat-out pardon those on federal death row.
“Don‘t stop at Hunter Biden,” Bowman said following the controversial pardon of the First Son. “Pardon the 40 people who are on death row right now to get them off of death row, number one.”
Rep. Jamaal Bowman says President Biden must use his pardon power for death row inmates:
“Don‘t stop at Hunter Biden. Pardon the 40 people who are on death row right now to get them off of death row, number one.” pic.twitter.com/dGQv6krr2w
— Rusty (@Rusty_Weiss) December 3, 2024
Bush, meanwhile, wrote in an op-ed for Time Magazine, “If [Biden] truly opposes the death penalty, he must do everything in his power to stop it for good. Granting clemency to all on federal death row is his most effective tool.”
It’s difficult to ascertain which death row inmates might be spared through Biden’s potential act of clemency if he does not listen to the outside voices insisting on blanket clemency. There is very little differentiation among the absolute evil involved in the cases of these individuals.
As the New York Post reports, “Five of the men murdered children, nine butchered fellow inmates, and one killed a prison guard with a hammer while serving a life sentence for raping and murdering his wife, a US Marine.”
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Those aren’t even the most notorious individuals on the death row bench.
One such individual is Robert Gregory Bowers, the man who, on October 27, 2018, walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in a Pittsburgh suburb and opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on the congregation. He killed 11 people and wounded six others when all was said and done.
There are 40 inmates on federal death row, all murderers. Biden is reportedly considering commuting all their sentences to life. But he might make some exceptions. On what basis? From WSJ: https://t.co/8IurRPEu2f pic.twitter.com/d1A0WWbaWc
— Byron York (@ByronYork) December 21, 2024
Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is on death row as well. He, along with his brother Tamerlan, set off homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon in 2013, killing three people and injuring over 260.
They later shot Sean A. Collier of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Department six times, killing him.
Some very prominent Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, have been in favor of discussing restoring voting rights for Tsarnaev.
WATCH: Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders Give Extreme Answers on Voting Rights for Boston Marathon Bomber
Also sitting on death row is Dylann Roof, the man behind one of the most heinous racially motivated mass shootings in the country’s history.
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Roof murdered nine African-American churchgoers during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, 2015.
The Post also openly wonders how Biden’s potential act of clemency would affect ongoing cases with death penalty implications, including Payton Gendron, who murdered 10 African Americans and injured three others in a 2022 mass shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
Federal prosecutors have been seeking the death penalty for related federal hate crime charges.
Imagine for a moment that Donald Trump attempted to grant clemency to mass murderers motivated by racial hatred. Yet here we have the left openly cheering for these people to get a second chance at life, spitting on the graves of their victims.
It should be noted that the Wall Street Journal just issued a damning report with countless sources who indicate President Biden has been mentally incompetent from day one, essentially serving as a puppet to his handlers.
Whoever is forcing Biden’s hand on this matter – whether it’s Garland, the ‘Squad,’ or some fresh-faced college progressive interns – it is definitively evil.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) excoriated the idea of commuting the sentences of those on death row during remarks on the Senate floor earlier this week.
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“Let’s be clear what commuting these sentences would mean,” he said. “It would mean that the laws passed by Congress and applied by our judges and juries have no value.”
“It would mean that progressive politics is more important to the President than the lives taken by these murderers,” added McConnell. “It would mean that society’s most forceful condemnation of white supremacy and antisemitism must give way to legal mumbo jumbo.”
According to polling from Gallup in October 2024, approximately 53 percent of Americans still support the death penalty.
