In his final days in office, Biden issued a commutation for a man convicted of killing two FBI agents, a move which sparked widespread condemnation as he left office.
As reported by ABC News, Biden commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier, a radical Native American activist who was convicted of murdering two FBI agents in South Dakota in 1975. He fled to Canada to escape the law, but was arrested in Alberta in 1976 before being extradited to the United States. He then broke out of federal prison in 1979 before being recaptured, earning him another five years in prison.
“This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes,” said Biden’s statement.
Biden’s last acts in office were mass pardons, including for thousands of drug-related crimes and pardons for his own family members, a controversial move that raised questions about their possible guilt in corruption schemes involving foreign influence paying for access to the Biden White House. Biden also issued pardons for disgraced former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, and former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci, among others.
Biden’s commutation of Peltier was even condemned by his former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who pleaded with Biden in an open letter to not commute the murderer’s sentence.
“Peltier is a remorseless killer, who brutally murdered two of our own–Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams,” Wray said in his letter. “Granting Peltier any relief from his conviction or sentence is wholly unjustified and would be an affront to the rule of law.”
“In the aftermath of the murders, Peltier engaged in a violent flight from justice, firing shots at police officers as he eluded arrest and burglarizing a home,” Wray continued. “Following his apprehension months later in Canada, Peltier said that if he had known law enforcement officers were approaching, he would have “blow[n] [them] out of [their] shoes.”
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