In the wake of President Joe Biden’s single-day record of almost 1,500 sentence commutations along with 39 pardons and a promise of more to come, experts are expressing concern over the serious nature of many of the crimes that have been pardoned and the precedent that the actions could set for future presidents.

Biden’s cavalcade of pardons began with his son Hunter on December 1, in which he gave him a “full and unconditional pardon” for all offenses “he has committed or may have committed or taken part in” from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024, “including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted (including any that have resulted in convictions).” Notably, Biden pardoned his son after personally stating that he would not do so, and after repeated White House statements over the last year that he would not do so, as recently as November 12.

Then on December 12, Biden “set a record for single-day acts of clemency” by commuting the sentences of 1,499 people and issuing 39 pardons. As catalogued by National Review, some of the individuals that Biden commuted the sentences of include Michael Conahan, who was convicted of “funneling juvenile defendants to two private, for-profit detention centers in exchange for $2.1 million in kickbacks.” At least one of the minors sent to the juvenile prison committed suicide.

Another commutation was given to former Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, who “made about $450,000 off bribes, including trips to Las Vegas, prostitutes and an infamous outdoor stone-fired pizza oven installed in the backyard of his Independence home.”

Biden also commuted the sentence of former Dixon city comptroller Rita Crundwell, who was “convicted of embezzling $53.7 million from the city — pegged as the largest municipal theft in U.S. history.”

In addition, the president gave a commutation to former investment firm head Eric Bloom, who committed a four-year scheme of “artificially boosting [investor’s] returns at the expense of less favored clients.” In the end, Bloom “bilked investors out of more than $665 million in the biggest financial fraud case ever tried in Chicago.”

Biden further commuted the 188-month prison sentence of Leon Benzer (“one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, 14 counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud, and two counts of tax evasion”), lessened by four years the sentence of Timothy McGinn for mail and wire fraud, securities fraud, and filing false tax returns (resulting in 841 victims and pocketing $30 million), and commuted the sentence of Christopher M. Swartz, who “us[ed] multiple schemes, shell companies and layers of transactions in an effort to escape detection” and “stole millions of dollars from investors and lenders and cheated the public treasury out of millions of dollars of taxes.”

As noted by National Review’s Jim Geraghty, “Joe Biden has a real soft spot in his heart for fraudsters, swindlers, and embezzlers, huh? I guess game respects game.”

In August, three House committees released a report detailing how Biden engaged in a “conspiracy to monetize” his office of vice president and committed “influence peddling and grift,” in which numerous shell companies owned by multiple Biden family members accrued millions of dollars from foreign entities and individuals in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan. In total, Biden and his family are estimated to have accumulated at least $27 million from the schemes.

Meanwhile, following last week’s pardons, Biden declared that he intends to “take more steps in the weeks ahead.” Experts speculate that the president may defy previous norms and take the unprecedented step of “preemptively pardoning all of [his] political appointees” before they are convicted of crimes. Influential left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suggested as much during NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, when he stated that Biden “might want to consider [preemptive pardons] very seriously.” Reports surfaced soon after Hunter Biden’s pardon stating that the president is “discussing possible preemptive pardons” for highly controversial figures such as retired Gen. Mark Milley, former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, Senator-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

In a National Review column on Sunday, scholar and law professor John Yoo and Claremont Institute fellow Robert Delahunty contend that President Biden is using the pardon in a way that was never intended by the framers of the Constitution. “Biden’s pardons may represent the end of the lawfare campaign, but only by a vast expansion — and distortion — of the pardon power,” they conclude.