Here’s the difference between a presidential pardon and commutation

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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked Wednesday whether President Joe Biden will commute the impending sentence of his son Hunter, who was convicted of federal gun charges Tuesday. She said that she hadn’t spoken with the president about the subject since the verdict and noted that the sentencing hadn’t been scheduled yet. I confess that I hadn’t considered the possibility of a Hunter Biden commutation to be an open question, as the president has said that he wouldn’t pardon his son. I had presumed that that covers any clemency — clemency being the umbrella term covering pardons, which are executive expressions of forgiveness that can restore certain rights, as well as commutations, which reduce sentences. Perhaps the president’s prior remarks do cover both, as the average person is probably more familiar with the term “pardon” than “commutation,” and many people outside of the Trump-era clemency crony clown car don’t have much reason to know the difference, anyway. Again, Hunter Biden’s sentencing isn’t even scheduled yet. So to make the question ripe from a practical standpoint, he’d first need to face a prison term. But while we’re on the subject, it would be a potentially odd distinction to pre-emptively rule out a pardon but hold open the possibility of commutation. Not that that’s what’s happening here, and perhaps the president will clarify this in the wake of a rash of headlines saying he hasn’t ruled it out. The potential oddity stems from the notion that the president’s pre-emptive stance on a pardon was seemingly rooted in not wanting to appear as if he would give preferential treatment. Of course, vowing not to pardon a certain defendant ahead of time is actually giving the president’s son worse-than-average treatment, because it involves prejudging his eligibility before he has served any time or, obviously, submitted a clemency application. That aside, if the president’s reasoning behind ruling out a pardon is of the no-one-is-above-the-law variety, then taking any action in his son’s favor could cut against that. That aside, if the president’s reasoning behind ruling out a pardon is of the no-one-is-above-the-law variety, then taking any action in his son’s favor could cut against that. Though we could think of distinctions: If Hunter Biden receives a truly draconian sentence, disproportionate to what any similar defendant has received (though that raises another issue of the below-the-law variety, as his charges are rarely brought as they were here), then the president could use his authority to reduce the sentence to one that’s more in line with similar precedents, while simultaneously not issuing a pardon. But before going further on this point, let’s see what the sentence is and whether the president himself further clarifies the issue in the meantime. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.