Scandalous Clemency

The last hours of the outgoing administration involved scandalous exercises of the pardon power. They are themselves demonstrations of the wickedness of the departing order. I suspect that there will be significant investigations into everyone pardoned, since there are crucial truths to uncover around each of them and they cannot now claim 5th Amendment protections. 

One defensible exercise was the clemency granted to Leonard Peltier. His conviction was always dubious, based on the testimony of the same FBI that was engaged in the COINTELPRO operations against the recently-mentioned MLK. The FBI hasn't just been bad in the last few years; this wannabe secret police has been bad since its foundation. Gun battles with them ought to be considered gently by juries, under the assumption that they probably deserved whatever resistance they provoked. Instead he was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and, eligible for parole since 1993, has been kept in harsh conditions amid regular beatings likely encouraged by the prison guards. 

Biden was typically cowardly here, not pardoning the one character on his list who might have merited a pardon. He just gave him clemency to "lifetime house arrest." What a disgrace.