More pardons from President Bush

As this AP report details, President Bush pardoned 14 persons on Wednesday.  Based on the brief bios given in news reports, this gang of 14 is an eclectic bunch.  TalkLeft notes here that four of the persons receiving pardons are drug offenders; White Collar Crime Prof Blog notes here that “only four appear to be white collar type cases.”  (The “only” adjective flows from the fact that, as detailed here, a majority of persons benefitting from President Bush’s last group of pardons were white-collar offenders.)

Late last year, when President Bush issued a mere four pardons during the holiday season, this blog and others buzzed about Bush’s stingy pardon practices.  And yet, in response to a group of seven pardons from this past summer, former pardon attorney Margaret Love commented via this post that “the very fact that this President has begun issuing pardons on a fairly regular basis is encouraging.”  I suspect that Margy will again be encouraged by this latest curious, but sizeable, batch of pardons.

Here are some earlier posts on this interesting topic:

• More (minor) pardons from President Bush
• More insights on the recent Bush pardons
• Bush’s stingy pardon practice
• More pardon buzz
• Media criticism of Bush’s pardon practice
• The Washington Post on Bush’s pardons