Obama commutes 330 additional prison sentences

In what was likely to be his final major use of executive authority, President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of an additional 330 federal prisoners on Thursday — the most granted by a president in a single day in history.

The move brings his commutation total to 1,715, more than any other president. The vast majority are low-level drug offenders who were subject to now-outdated mandatory minimum sentences. And while Obama’s push for criminal justice reform came up short in his last two years in office, he directed his own justice department to drive a more assertive use of the president’s clemency authority.

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