Who granted the most presidential pardons?

Joe Biden has bowed out of the White House with a slew of presidential pardons. Today they have been awarded to Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, a bunch of family members and an assortment of investigators from the January 6 riots — but Biden also controversially pardoned his son Hunter a month ago, despite promising not to.

The presidential pardon has been a part of the Constitution since the start — something that the Founding Fathers thought worth keeping from the British monarchy. Historically it’s been quite sparingly used. Most presidents pardoned no more than a few hundred through the first hundred years of the US — with the exception of the aftermath of the Civil War.

Since World War One it’s seen a bit more of an airing — although some of these are mass pardons for particular bits of legislation, rather than impeached predecessors. Jimmy Carter pardoned something over 200,000 Vietnam draft dodgers, and Joe Biden forgave 6,500 convicted of marijuana possession. That explains why he’s quite so high (on our chart).

Donald Trump, by contrast, was positively restrained in his first term with a mere 237 — some of whom were long dead. Perhaps this may change in his second term.