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By Richard F. Expansive, Jr.

On January 19, 2025, Leonard Peltier — convicted for his role within the execution-fashion murders of FBI Special Brokers Jack Coler and Ronald Williams — used to be granted clemency by President Joe Biden. The commutation, issued within the closing hours of Biden’s presidency, blindsided the law enforcement group and reignited long-standing wounds interior the FBI household. But as raw as that moment felt, time has brought a brand fresh point of view, and extra troubling questions.

Peltier used to be convicted in 1977 for his involvement within the brutal ambush and assassinate of two younger FBI brokers on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He did not act on my own, nevertheless he used to be held accountable for firing the fatal images at point-blank differ, because the brokers lay wounded, stripped of protection.

Over the years, Peltier’s case became a image—not of guilt or innocence, nevertheless of narrative. Activists painted him as a political prisoner. Celebrities and public figures known as for his initiate, and Robert Redford even directed a documentary about him. But courts, judges, and four presidents — Invoice Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump —persistently upheld his conviction.

So why now? Why, after decades of clarity, did Joe Biden roar sure? 

Support in January, I penned an initiate letter titled “Biden Kicks the FBI within the Teeth on the Map Out the Door.” It used to be a correct away, emotional part solid within the warmth of disbelief. For those of us who spent our careers pursuing justice — of us that held the hands of victims’ families, who buried fallen companions, and who carried the badge thru thick and skinny — it felt like betrayal. 

I supposed every note.

But because the weeks became to months, I discovered myself drawn not honest to the effort of the act, nevertheless to the mystery lifeless it. What if President Biden didn’t know the build he used to be walking or who he used to be walking over? To position it it looks that evidently: what if someone else had the pen? The legit clemency negate bears the signature of President Biden, nevertheless what it would not negate us is how that signature used to be applied. Turned into it handwritten by the President himself, or used to be it replicated by an autopen on the authorization of staff?

The autopen isn’t very inherently controversial. It’s been feeble for years to impress ceremonial paperwork, routine authorizations, and even laws when the President explicitly authorizes it. 

But clemency is varied. It’s not ceremonial. It’s an irreversible act of mercy, judgment, and government energy. Clemency rightly carries with it a rigorous job from the petitioning stage to correct reports and senior advisors giving their ideas. The White Dwelling Counsel’s Articulate of industrial in total makes closing suggestions and, if clemency is granted, the paper path exists. 

So the build is the paper path with Peltier’s pardon? Who reviewed his file? Who briefed President Biden and who signed off — or, in actuality, signed — the closing pardon?

Clemency requires deliberation. It demands accountability. We got none in case of Leonard Peltier. There used to be no public observation from President Biden about Peltier prior to January 19, nor any telegraph of the transfer. No press initiate, no interview, no op-ed explaining his reasoning, no briefing for the Bureau, no outreach to the families of Coler and Williams. Nothing.

This is about trust, not vengeance. This is about job, not politics. This is in regards to the peace of ideas that, when our most sacred institutions act, they attain so interior the letter of the law and with fleshy awareness of the penalties of their actions. In my law enforcement career, I’ve misplaced company, colleagues, and mentors. Their names are etched not honest in granite, nevertheless in my heart and the hearts of of us that served beside them. I’ve considered firsthand the fee of accountability. I’ve sat with grieving families, attended funerals stuffed with solemn honor, and carried the enduring accountability of making sure that justice stays extra than a belief — it is a ways a promise saved. 

Jack never got to raise his son. His closest company—retired brokers still carry the weight of that week, 50 years later.  Ron is remembered not as a title on a plaque, nevertheless as an even friend, a gape, and a individual who answered the option and paid the worth. When Leonard Peltier or someone like him walks free thru the held door of kinds, it sends a message that law enforcement lives are negotiable. It tells our law enforcement mavens that assassinate may presumably well simply additionally be reconsidered and criminals are positioned above the very criminal guidelines they spoil. 

A convicted FBI agent killer is now on the boulevard. No longer on sage of fresh proof got here to gentle or on sage of a court overturned his conviction.

No, this option used to be one in all political convenience for a departing president with out regard for individuals that threat their lives keeping every American — including Joe Biden himself.

Richard F. Expansive, Jr. is a retired FBI Special Agent and founding father of Reform the Bureau, a nationwide group of ragged and fresh brokers advocating for integrity, oversight, and accountability in federal law enforcement.