The Gift That Just Keeps on Giving

Biden’s clemency spree, driven by radical ideologues and a detached presidency, has transformed justice into a tool for political appeasement at the expense of victims and public safety.

Clemency, Ideology, and the Death Row Crisis

Friday, December 20th, 2024: By, Walter Curt

In his relentless pursuit of "Reformative Justice," President Biden and his administration have weaponized clemency, not as a means of ensuring public safety or restoring fairness, but as a tool to implement an unrestrained radical agenda. What started during the Obama years as a bureaucratic experiment in progressivism has now evolved into a direct assault on the core principles of justice under Biden’s detached presidency.

In our previous exposé, we revealed the staggering scope of Biden’s Christmas clemency spree: 1,500 convicted criminals—including spies, predators, and fraudsters—were granted freedom under the guise of "second chances." Public outrage was swift and justified. But the deeper we dig, the clearer it becomes that this was no impulsive act of misplaced mercy. Instead, it was the culmination of three years of calculated efforts orchestrated by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and a cadre of radical bureaucrats at the Department of Justice (DOJ).

With Biden largely absent from the helm, this administration's ideologues have seized the reins, turning clemency into a political weapon aimed squarely at reshaping the justice system into a caricature of equity—where the rights of victims are an afterthought and public safety is sacrificed for ideological purity.

Lisa Monaco, Deputy Attorney General

Biden’s DOJ: A Machine for Criminal Appeasement

Lisa Monaco, the architect of Biden’s clemency spree, has built her career at the intersection of national security and justice reform. A seasoned DOJ veteran, Monaco served as a key national security adviser during the Obama administration, gaining a reputation for her ability to navigate bureaucratic complexities. Her tenure during the Obama years also exposed her to the emerging push for restorative justice—a progressive philosophy that emphasizes rehabilitation and community healing over punitive measures. While she wasn’t directly tied to the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) at the time, Monaco’s return to the DOJ under Biden marked the beginning of a calculated effort to institutionalize these radical ideas within the department.

Monaco’s agenda as Deputy Attorney General focused on reshaping the justice system from within. Central to this effort was her expansion of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, which she doubled in size to accommodate a new emphasis on “Reformative Justice.” This initiative, often framed in lofty rhetoric about second chances, represented a sharp break from traditional justice principles. Rather than ensuring safety and restitution for victims, the system was refashioned to prioritize clemency for offenders.

Monaco enlisted the National Center on Restorative Justice (NCJR)—a program championed under Obama and funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance—as a blueprint for her reforms. NCJR’s focus on shifting from punitive approaches to restorative ones provided Monaco with the ideological foundation she needed to overhaul the clemency process. By streamlining applications, engaging directly with activist groups, and embedding the principles of restorative justice into the DOJ’s policies, Monaco positioned the Office of the Pardon Attorney as the epicenter of her broader agenda.

Yet, these reforms were not designed to deliver justice. Instead, they were weaponized to bypass the legislative process and impose sweeping changes that undermined accountability. Monaco’s clemency framework was tailored to appease progressive activists, granting leniency to criminals whose actions had irreparably harmed their victims.

Brent Cohen, Acting Assistant Attorney General OJP

A Radical at the Helm

Enter Brent Cohen, the acting Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Office of Justice Programs (OJP)—a man whose career exemplifies the dangerous intersection of progressive activism and bureaucratic authority. Cohen’s ascension within the DOJ is not accidental; it is the culmination of his years spent championing radical policies that prioritize the rights of criminals over the safety and well-being of communities.

Cohen’s tenure as vice president and interim CEO of JustLeadershipUSA (JLUSA) serves as a critical window into his ideological framework. JLUSA, a central force in the reformative justice movement, has long advocated for policies that dismantle traditional notions of accountability and incarceration. It played a leading role in the #CLOSErikers campaign, a high-profile effort to shut down New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex. While marketed as a response to the facility’s inhumane conditions, the campaign’s true legacy lies in its broader push to replace incarceration with vague community-based alternatives like mental health services and education programs—initiatives that often lack proper oversight or measurable success.

Cohen’s involvement in the #CLOSErikers movement is emblematic of his philosophy: a justice system informed not by the rights of victims or the rule of law, but by an activist-driven agenda that seeks to redefine crime as a societal failing rather than an individual choice. The movement’s #buildCOMMUNITIES platform, which Cohen helped spearhead, advocated for shifting resources from incarceration to social programs, creating a framework that has since found a home within the DOJ under his leadership.

Now at the helm of the OJP, Cohen has brought his radical vision to a national stage. Through initiatives like the Second Chance fellowship, he has embedded directly impacted individuals—many of them former offenders—into the policy-making process. While marketed as an effort to bring fresh perspectives to justice reform, this approach blurs the line between advocacy and governance, allowing activist agendas to seep into the very framework of the federal justice system.

Cohen’s commitment to these principles has real-world consequences. Under his leadership, the OJP has championed policies that dismiss the suffering of victims in favor of narratives that portray criminals as casualties of systemic injustice. This radical experiment, far from academic, endangers communities by prioritizing ideological purity over public safety.

By bringing Cohen into such a critical position, Lisa Monaco has solidified the DOJ’s transformation into a laboratory for radical reforms. Cohen’s presence underscores the administration’s willingness to dismantle the justice system piece by piece, replacing accountability and punishment with policies rooted in the activist playbook.

Dzhokhar Anzorovich Tsarnaev, Aka: The Boston Bomber

The Coming Storm: Federal Death Row

The clemency spree may only be the beginning. Biden’s administration is now reportedly preparing to commute the sentences of nearly all 40 federal prisoners on death row, including some of the most infamous killers in recent memory. Among them is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber, whose heinous attack killed three people, including an eight-year-old boy, and maimed hundreds more.

While Attorney General Merrick Garland has recommended excluding a handful of cases involving terrorism and hate crimes, the fact that such individuals are even under consideration underscores the administration’s warped priorities. Biden’s potential move to clear federal death row is being framed as an act of moral courage, but in truth, it is a betrayal of the victims and their families—a slap in the face to those who believed that justice would prevail.

This betrayal is further compounded by recent revelations that Biden himself has been far removed from the decision-making process throughout his presidency. A stunning exposé by The Wall Street Journal has pulled back the curtain on an administration effectively run by radical staffers and senior advisers. Biden, described as a figurehead insulated from his own policies, has been shielded from unfavorable news, negative poll data, and even direct interaction with key lawmakers and cabinet members.

The President’s advanced age and apparent cognitive decline, long whispered about in Washington, have necessitated an unprecedented level of staff control. Meetings are carefully choreographed to avoid overburdening him, and aides tightly manage his public appearances to minimize the risk of gaffes. Yet, these revelations about Biden’s detachment from governance cast an even darker shadow over the clemency spree. If Biden himself is not in control, then who is signing off on these radical decisions?

The answer is painfully clear. Figures like Lisa Monaco and Brent Cohen—radical ideologues embedded deep within the DOJ—are the ones driving this agenda. Under their leadership, clemency has become a political weapon, used to implement far-left reforms that circumvent Congress and the will of the American people. Their priorities are ideological, not judicial, and they are leveraging Biden’s detachment to push through policies that would never survive public scrutiny.

This context makes the potential mass commutations on federal death row even more alarming. The lives of victims, the safety of our communities, and the integrity of the justice system are being sacrificed to appease a radical vision of justice. Biden’s supposed “moral courage” in commuting death sentences is nothing more than a smokescreen for the dangerous policies being orchestrated by those pulling the strings behind the scenes.

A Legacy of Lawlessness

The clemency spree and looming death row commutations represent the culmination of years of radical reforms spearheaded by Lisa Monaco and her allies. Under Brent Cohen’s guidance, the Office of Justice Programs has become a testing ground for these dangerous policies, leveraging taxpayer dollars to prioritize offenders over victims.

What the Biden administration calls “Reformative Justice” is, in reality, a thinly veiled assault on the principles of accountability and public safety. Clemency has been transformed into a tool for ideological appeasement, where the rights of victims and the rule of law are sacrificed on the altar of equity.

This is more than a policy failure—it is a moral collapse. By prioritizing radical agendas over the safety of communities, the administration is gambling with the lives of everyday Americans. The cost of this experiment is not theoretical; it is paid in the suffering of victims and the erosion of justice itself.

A Nation at a Crossroads

This administration’s clemency spree is not a gift to the American people; it is a curse. It is a betrayal of the principles of justice and a chilling preview of what lies ahead if we continue down this path.

Americans must demand accountability. They must reject the false narrative of Reformative Justice and insist on a return to true justice—one that prioritizes the rights of victims and the safety of our communities. Anything less is not justice; it is surrender.

If Biden and his radical DOJ continue their assault on justice, the damage to our legal system may be irreparable. The clemency spree may be the gift that keeps on giving, but for the American people, it is one they cannot afford to accept.