President Trump has denied clemency for 180 people who had applied for pardons and commutations through formal Justice Department channels even as he has short-circuited that process to pardon political allies, USA Today reports. The denials were the first actions on the Justice Department’s clemency caseload since Trump was inaugurated last year. Among those denied clemency was Anthony Calabrese, a 57-year-old reputed mob hit man from Chicago convicted of three robberies and sentenced to 62 years in prison. He requested compassionate release after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
One White House official said the denials were “routine.” The official said the cases did not meet the president’s “high standards” for clemency. The last three presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — all denied hundreds of applications in their first two years before granting their very first pardons and commutations. Three days before Trump rejected a batch of pardon applications, he granted one to someone who hadn’t applied for one: Scooter Libby, the former Bush administration aide convicted of lying to the FBI in a probe into the leak of classified information. Trump’s other pardons — for former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former Navy submariner Kristian Saucier — came in highly politicized cases that also circumvented the formal process for granting pardons. That process includes an FBI background check and recommendations from prosecutors.