Obama grants 78 pre-Christmas pardons in last-minute clemency push

Obama grants 78 pre-Christmas pardons in last-minute clemency push: President Obama granted 78 pardons and 153 commutations on Monday — a single-day record for the use of presidential clemency power as Obama engages in an historic end-of-term clemency surge.

With just 32 days left in office, Obama more than doubled the number of pardons he granted in the previous seven years.

And he continued his vigorous use of a lesser form of his clemency power, having now commuted the sentences of 1,176 federal prison inmates — mostly for long, mandatory-minimum drug sentences imposed during a war on drugs waged over the past three decades.

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