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President Obama pardoned 17 people for nonviolent offenses 
Friday, a rare move that nearly doubled the number of pardons he 
has granted since taking office just over four years ago.

The individuals came from 13 states and were sentenced years if 
not decades ago for such minor federal offenses as falsely 
altering a U.S. money order, possessing an unregistered firearm, 
embezzling bank funds and acquiring food stamps without 
authorization.

Among those pardoned was a Massachusetts fishing magnate who 
pleaded guilty more than 20 years ago to laundering Canadian 
fish and selling them to the Defense Department as American fish.

Two Washington area residents were on the pardons list released 
Friday. Jamari Salleh of Alexandria, a former foreign service 
officer, had been sentenced for submitting phony lodging 
vouchers to the State Department. Robert Leroy Bebee of 
Rockville is an accomplished biotechnology inventor whose 
offense was concealing information about a felony.

The pardons, the first of Obama�s second term, are significant 
because this president so infrequently grants clemency.

Before Friday, Obama had granted 22 pardons; he had received 
petitions from 1,333 individuals, according to the data 
maintained by the Department of Justice�s Office of the Pardon 
Attorney. He granted his first batch of pardons, totaling nine, 
in December 2010, and granted eight in May 2011 and five in 
November 2011.

By contrast, former president George W. Bush received 2,498 
petitions and granted 189 pardons, while former president Bill 
Clinton received 2,001 petitions and granted 396 pardons, 
according to the data.

Dafna Linzer of ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news 
organization, reported last year that Obama has granted clemency 
at a lower rate than any modern president. Among the hundreds of 
people who have been denied pardons by Obama, Linzer reported, 
are a former brothel manager who helped the FBI bust a national 
prostitution ring and a retired sheriff who inadvertently helped 
a money launderer buy land.

Obama has come under criticism for not using more frequently his 
constitutional powers to pardon people for federal crimes. Some 
academics argue that the president could have more impact by 
pardoning younger people with more recent crimes.

�He�s not only being extremely stingy, but he�s giving pardons 
to people who arguably need them the very least,� said P.S. 
Ruckman Jr., a political scientist at Rock Valley College in 
Illinois who blogs about presidential pardons. �The people who 
need pardons are people in their 30s and 40s and 50s who are 
trying to get jobs and raise families.�

Jeffrey Crouch, a political science professor at American 
University, said the pardons announced Friday mirror those Obama 
granted in his first term.

�The president�s pattern has been pretty much to go for the safe 
route � look for older offenses, nonviolent offenses � and using 
the pardon power in some cases just enough to not be criticized 
for not using it at all,� said Crouch, author of �The 
Presidential Pardon Power.�

Comments:

Demand Peace
4:41 PM PST
Lol! You say, '...he doubled his pardons...'? That's way off! 
Are we forgetting the 100s, if not 1000s of bankers and brokers 
and lenders and vipers and thieves relative to the recession, 
and the HSBCs recent pardons for crimes too numerous to list 
here; not to mention his pardon of his own treason, war crimes 
and crimes against humanity! If you ask me, he's pardon maniacal 
to the detriment of us all!!! Freedoms fabric is torn, and every 
prediction our founding fathers detailed of a private central 
bank holding our economy hostage, lives and breathes around us.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-grants-pardons-to-
17-people-for-nonviolent-offenses/2013/03/01/1932107e-82bf-11e2-
a350-49866afab584_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop

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