Biden Quietly Commuted Sentences of Chinese Spies

President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he was granting 39 pardons and 1,499 commutations in what his administation called the “largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history.” But it’s not Thursday’s set of commutations that have caught the attention of concerned Americans — it’s those that were quietly given weeks ago to Chinese spies.

X user Nick Sortor posted that “Joe Biden just pardoned multiple Chinese spies and an individual convicted of possessing child p*rnography. WHY?”

But the thing is, Biden didn’t “just” commute the sentences for these criminals — he did it quietly only days before Thanksgiving.

While most Americans were finalizing their menus and getting into the holiday spirit, Biden commuted the sentence of Yanjun Xu on November 22. Xu was convicted in 2022 for “conspiracy to commit economic espionage; conspiracy to commit trade secret theft; attempted economic espionage by theft or fraud; attempted theft of trade secrets by taking or deception.”

But according to Biden’s pardon, “it is in the national interest that the term of imprisonment related to the aforesaid conviction not be served in its entirety.” (Read more from “Biden Quietly Commuted Sentences of Chinese Spies” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr