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Pardon or Amnesty↕ | Year↕ | Granted By↕ | Recipient(s)↕ | Country↕ | Controversy↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nixon Pardon | 1974 | President Gerald Ford | Richard Nixon | United States | Blanket pardon for any Watergate-era crimes, may have cost Ford the 1976 election, ended the scandal abruptly |
| Vietnam Draft Dodgers Amnesty | 1977 | President Jimmy Carter | Approximately 200,000 draft evaders | United States | Day one presidential act, divided veterans and anti-war movement, excluded military deserters |
| Marc Rich Pardon | 2001 | President Bill Clinton | Marc Rich (fugitive financier) | United States | Last-day pardon of tax evader whose ex-wife donated to Clinton library, investigated by federal prosecutors |
| South African Amnesty (TRC) | 1995 | Truth and Reconciliation Commission | Apartheid-era perpetrators | South Africa | Amnesty for truth model pioneered by Tutu and Mandela, criticized by victims for letting killers walk free |
| Iran-Contra Pardons | 1992 | President George H.W. Bush | Caspar Weinberger and five others | United States | Christmas Eve pardons ended Iran-Contra prosecutions, Bush himself had been implicated in the affair |
| Confederate Amnesty | 1868 | President Andrew Johnson | Former Confederate soldiers and officials | United States | Christmas Day universal amnesty, contested by Radical Republicans, left Reconstruction incomplete |
| Dreyfus Pardon | 1899 | President Emile Loubet | Captain Alfred Dreyfus | France | Pardoned rather than exonerated for antisemitic frame-up, full rehabilitation came only in 1906 |
| Oscar Wilde Posthumous Pardon | 2017 | UK Crown (Policing and Crime Act) | Alan Turing and 50,000 gay men | United Kingdom | Turing's Law posthumously pardoned those convicted under repealed anti-gay laws, decades too late for most |
| Arpaio Pardon | 2017 | President Donald Trump | Sheriff Joe Arpaio | United States | First Trump pardon, bypassed DOJ process, contempt of court conviction for racial profiling erased |
| Puigdemont and Catalan Leaders | 2021 | PM Pedro Sanchez (royal pardon) | 9 Catalan independence leaders | Spain | Partial pardons of sedition convictions, angered Spanish unionists, seen as political concession |
| Pinochet Immunity | 1978 | Chilean military government | Pinochet-era officials | Chile | Self-amnesty decree for junta crimes, challenged for decades, partially undone by later prosecutions |
| Leonard Peltier Denial | 2017 | President Barack Obama (denied) | Leonard Peltier (Native American activist) | United States | Obama declined clemency despite international campaign, Peltier still imprisoned over 1975 FBI deaths |
| January 6 Pardons | 2025 | President Donald Trump | Approximately 1,500 Capitol riot defendants | United States | Day-one blanket pardons including violent offenders, denounced by Capitol Police and prosecutors |
| Edward VIII Abdication Settlement | 1937 | British Parliament | Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor) | United Kingdom | Not a pardon per se but legal amnesty for abdication, ended constitutional crisis over Wallis Simpson |
| Jack Johnson Posthumous Pardon | 2018 | President Donald Trump | Jack Johnson (boxer) | United States | Corrected racially-motivated 1913 Mann Act conviction of first Black heavyweight champion, rare bipartisan support |
| Turkish Amnesty Law | 2018 | Turkish Parliament | Thousands of prisoners | Turkey | Released convicts including mafia figure Alaattin Cakici, excluded journalists and political prisoners |
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