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Which president issued the most pardons during their first term in office?
Executive Summary
The available, recent analyses converge on a clear conclusion: Franklin D. Roosevelt granted the most pardons during a first presidential term in U.S. history, with cumulative totals far exceeding other presidents’ first-term tallies; contemporary comparisons that highlight high clemency volumes for Joe Biden and Harry S. Truman reflect different metrics (commutations plus pardons or full presidencies) and different time frames. The disparate tallies in media summaries arise from mixing total acts of clemency, commutations versus pardons, and single-term versus multi‑term totals, which leads to confusion unless the metric is precisely defined [1] [2] [3].
1. Bold Claims Pulled from the Briefing — What People Are Saying and Why It Matters
The dataset and briefing include several recurring claims: that Harry Truman issued the most pardons overall [4] [5], that Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the most pardons and averaged the most pardons per year, that Donald Trump issued 144 pardons in his first term, and that Joe Biden granted more acts of clemency than any prior president with thousands of clemency acts in his four-year term. These claims mix different measures: total pardons across an entire presidency, annual averages, first‑term totals, and combined clemency acts (pardons plus commutations). The distinction matters because counting commutations alongside pardons inflates a president’s total clemency footprint compared with counting pardons alone; several briefs explicitly note Biden’s high total of clemency acts but also that most were commutations, which is a different exercise of clemency than outright pardons [3] [2] [6].
2. What the Historical Record Shows When You Compare Like with Like
Authoritative compilations of presidential clemency indicate that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first term produced the largest single‑term pardon tally, with government data and historical tallies calculating Roosevelt’s first-term pardons in the thousands, yielding the highest annualized rate among 20th-century presidents. By contrast, Harry S. Truman’s 1,913 pardons are often cited as a large single‑presidency total but not necessarily concentrated only in a first term, and modern presidents such as Donald Trump and Joe Biden have much smaller counts of formal pardons but very different commutation practices, especially Biden whose four‑year record included thousands of commutations that dwarf traditional pardon counts. Careful data reviews separate Roosevelt’s concentrated first-term pardon volume from later-era clemency strategies that emphasize commutations [1] [3] [2].
3. Why Recent Coverage Emphasizes Biden and Creates Confusion
Recent reporting from February 2025 and late 2024 emphasizes Joe Biden’s unprecedented number of acts of clemency—more than any prior president in a four‑year span—largely because he used mass commutations as a policy tool, particularly late in his term. These stories sometimes conflate acts of clemency with pardons, producing headlines that appear to overturn historical records on pardons without clarifying that commutations, which shorten sentences, are counted separately from pardons, which restore rights or forgive offenses. That conflation explains why modern summaries claim Biden set clemency records while historical tallies still show FDR leading first-term pardon totals [2] [6].
4. Reconciling Discrepancies: Metrics, Timeframes, and Reporting Agendas
Discrepancies across sources trace to three consistent factors: metric selection (pardons vs. commutations vs. combined actions), timeframe choice (first term vs. full presidency vs. annual averages), and editorial framing that highlights a political narrative—either about criminal justice reform or presidential pardon controversies. Some outlets emphasize Biden’s mass commutations to argue for reformist momentum; others highlight FDR or Truman to contextualize historical norms. When the question is strictly “most pardons during a first term,” the historical datasets that separate pardons from commutations and isolate first‑term counts show FDR at the top, whereas reporting that lumps categories will mislead readers into different conclusions [1] [6] [7].
5. Bottom Line Answer and How to Verify It Yourself
If the question is read strictly as “which U.S. president issued the most formal pardons during their first term,” Franklin D. Roosevelt is the correct answer according to historical pardon tallies and annualized averages; if the question instead means “which president granted the most acts of clemency (pardons plus commutations) in a four‑year presidency,” recent analyses show Joe Biden carried the largest total of clemency acts by that broader measure. To verify, consult primary clemency data from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney and cross‑check reputable analyses that explicitly state whether they count pardons only or pardons plus commutations [1] [2] [3].