Overview
- Joe Klecko, Nate Newton, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry and the late Billy Cannon received presidential pardons announced on Feb. 13.
- White House clemency adviser Alice Marie Johnson announced the grants and publicly framed them as opportunities for second chances.
- The five had federal convictions that ranged from perjury to drug trafficking, including Klecko’s perjury plea and drug cases involving Newton, Lewis and Henry.
- Cannon’s pardon was posthumous after his 1980s counterfeiting case and his death in 2018.
- The administration has not provided case-by-case explanations, and at least one outlet published a conflicting, uncorroborated list of beneficiaries.