In a letter to President Joe Biden‘s son, Hunter, former U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. is asking his assistance in advocating for millions of Americans who have served their sentences to receive a pardon from felonization. Jackson states in the letter that only a complete, absolute and unconditional pardon from the President of the United States can give these “debt-paid fellow citizens” a “new life on earth.”
Jackson Jr. says he is appealing to Hunter to intercede because he feels a kindred spirit–father to father, and son to son–to ask on behalf of the many other sons and daughters throughout our country who don’t have a voice. Jackson Jr.’s letter comes after his father, Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., made a similar appeal to President Biden earlier this month. In it the civil rights leader urged Biden’s “consideration for a full and absolute pardon for your son, and for mine….”
Coincidentally, on the same day the elder Jackson sent his letter to Biden, the president’s son was granted a “full and unconditional pardon” for offenses from Jan. 1, 2014 through Dec. 1, 2024.
“Perhaps for such a time as this, you too are called to be an advocate for the full pardon of the debt-paid felon,” Jackson Jr. writes in the letter. “I do not advocate for pardons for serious offenders – there are those who must be incarcerated until they are rehabilitated. Today, I am advocating for the debt-paid felon who remains under ‘judgement,’ stigmatized in the eyes of our government and society because of a modern creation of ‘class’ called felonization.”
Jackson Jr. says there are 77 million Americans who have served their sentences, have not committed any new offenses, but are still imprisoned by guilt, shame and blame.
“Undoubtedly, lifelong felonization is worse than the sentence itself,” explains Jackson Jr. “I was sentenced to 30 months; I have been a felon for a decade. Your father’s act of mercy and grace has allowed you to miss this part of the process- an act of “on earth” forgiveness that he had every right to do, granted to him by the Founders of our country.”
Finally, the congressman suggests to Hunter that his father might issue a Presidential Pardon Proclamation along with an Executive Order to the Department of Justice, the United States Postal Service and the Internal Revenue Service, compelling them to implement the pardon by 11:59 a.m. Jan. 20, 2025.
