Posts Wrongly Conflate U.S.-China Prisoner Swap with Biden's Recent Pardons

Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de El Tiempo Latino.

Quick Take

President Joe Biden granted pardons and commutations to more than 1,500 individuals on Dec. 12. Social media posts wrongly claim those pardoned included a Chinese national, Shanlin Jin, imprisoned for child pornography. Jin was granted clemency as part of a prisoner swap last month that freed three Americans held for years in China.

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On Dec. 12, President Joe Biden granted 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations, less than two weeks after granting his son Hunter “a full and unconditional pardon” for any crimes “he has committed or may have committed” from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024.

Hunter Biden’s pardon dealt with three felonies related to his purchase and possession of a gun in 2018 as an active drug user, and lying about his drug use on a federal form necessary to purchase the gun. The sentencing for the case was scheduled for Dec. 12. The president’s son also pleaded guilty in September in federal court to nine tax-related charges, including three felonies and six misdemeanors, and faced sentencing in that case on Dec. 16.

Separately, the White House said the Dec. 12 act of clemency was for people “who were placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and who have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities. He [Biden] is also pardoning 39 individuals who were convicted of non-violent crimes. These actions represent the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history.”

But as social media users responded to Biden’s flurry of clemency actions that day, some have misrepresented one unrelated clemency issued last month. A Dec. 12 Instagram post from conservative commentator Benny Johnson said, “BREAKING: Joe Biden pardoned 39 people today including Chinese spies and an individual convicted of possessing child p*rnography. Oh, and the White House says they were individuals convicted of ‘non-violent’ crimes.”

A similar post on Instagram on Dec. 12 said, in part, “BREAKING NEWS Joe Biden just provided a Chinese national with clemency who was convicted of having 47,000 child p*rnography images in his possession. Shanlin Jin was sentenced to 97 months in prison after pleading guilty.”

But Jin’s clemency was not part of the pardons issued by Biden on Dec. 12, and his name does not appear on the list of clemency recipients announced that day.

Rather, Jin had been part of a widely reported prisoner swap with China that was announced by the U.S. on Nov. 27. In exchange for Jin and two other Chinese nationals, three Americans — John Leung, Kai Li and Mark Swidan — were released to the U.S. following months of diplomatic efforts, the New York Times reported. Leung had been imprisoned in China for three years, Li for eight years, and Swidan for more than 10 years.

The social media posts make no mention of the prisoner swap, leaving unanswered why Biden gave clemency to Jin.

The Financial Times identified Jin in a Nov. 29 article as one of the Chinese nationals released by the U.S. in the prisoner exchange. Jin had been a doctoral student at Southern Methodist University in Texas, and was sentenced in 2022 for possessing child pornography, the Dallas Morning News reported.

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