Pardons Unlimited

Presidential pardons. As of August of last year, President Obama had issued 562 commutations (a record), but only 70 pardons (also a record).

Last August, while Barack Obama was still president, a USA Today article noted that on a single day that month, Mr. Obama had issued a record-breaking 214 commutations of federal inmates, mostly low-level drug offenders. That brought his total sentence-reduction grants to 562, making Mr. Obama "one of the most prolific grantors of presidential commutations in history," the article said.

When it came to full pardons, however, Mr. Obama had been "the stingiest two-term president since George Washington," having issued just 70 so far. He did tell reporters that he planned to "catch up to his predecessors" in pardons by the end of his time in office. Perhaps by the time he left office, he got caught up.

The difference between a commutation and a pardon is significant: A commutation shortens the sentence of a convicted offender still incarcerated but does not change the fact of the conviction or imply innocence. A pardon does not signify innocence either, but it does give full legal...