Clemency

A key sticking point to passing an immigration reform package in Congress will be how to handle the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US.

Barack Obama’s election campaign fund has decided to re-pay donations from relatives of a fugitive, Juan Jose Rojas-Cardona. The family has also sought a pardon for Rojas-Cardona, who fled to Mexico in 1994 to escape a variety of fraud and drug charges.

The White House announced that President Bush would grant 14 pardons and commute 2 sentences before leaving office in January. The pardons did not include any of the high-profile defendants who have previously petitioned the Bush administration for help.

With President Bush facing a pile of applications for pardons, The Takeaway goes back to one of the most famous and controversial pardons a president has ever made.