Jacob Montag
On December 12, the White House announced that President Biden was issuing pardons for 39 individuals and commuting the sentences of roughly 1500 others. In the week prior to this announcement, Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden, who was facing a sentence of up to 24 years in prison for illegally purchasing a firearm while addicted to crack cocaine. Similarly to Hunter Biden, many of the individuals who have been granted pardons and clemency in the 11th hour of the Biden administration were found guilty of serious crimes and have connections to the Biden family and the Democratic Party.
One such case is the granting of clemency to Michael Conahan, a former Democratic Pennsylvania judge who was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison for his role in the “kids-for-cash” scandal. Conahan, along with his fellow Pennsylvania judge Mark Ciavarella, accepted bribes in exchange for imposing harsher sentences on juveniles to increase occupancy in Pennsylvania’s private prison system. Conahan received a total of over $2 million in payments for his role in the conspiracy. A Biden administration official told Politico that the White House was not familiar with the specifics of the scandal, which the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania called “the worst in Pennsylvania’s history”.
Another recipient of clemency from President Biden is Clarence Counterman, who was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for running a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme. Counterman and his co-conspirators were involved in the renewable energy sector. They ran several solar energy companies and sought investment capital for them, promising high rates of return. Funds raised through these efforts were then largely used for personal consumption rather than to purchase productive capital. In order to conceal their scheme, Counterman and his co-conspirators paid out returns to older investors using funds raised from newer investors until they were eventually apprehended and charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Also on President Biden’s clemency list is former CEO of American Senior Communities, James Burkhart. Burkhart, whose company ran dozens of nursing homes in Indiana, made significant campaign contributions to both the Democratic and Republican parties. Unsatisfied with his $1 million a year salary, Burkhart engaged in a massive fraud scheme through which he acquired over $20 million, largely from public health funds, through a network of shell companies. In 2018, he was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.
Other recipients of clemency include William Thomas Crane, who was convicted for his involvement in a methamphetamine trafficking ring that also included members of law enforcement and several prison inmates; Luz Perez DeMartinez, who was convicted of participating in a large-scale fentanyl trafficking operation in New England and sentenced to 11 years in prison; and Suheidy Soto-Concepcion, sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine.
While this assortment of corrupt government officials, multi-millionaire fraudsters, and high-level drug traffickers walk free thanks to President Biden, nearly 2 million people are languishing in the massive U.S. prison system. The imprisoned population in the United States is disproportionately made up of working class Americans, especially Black and Hispanic Americans, including many imprisoned for simple drug possession and debt.
