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WASHINGTON — President Bush granted pardons Tuesday to carjackers, drug dealers, a moonshiner and an election-laws violator. In all, he pardoned 29 convicts and reduced the prison sentence of one more in the end-of-the-year presidential tradition.
Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said Bush has granted 142 pardons and commuted five sentences since taking office in 2001 — lagging far behind the pace set by most modern presidents.
Nearly all of those to win pardons this year were small-time crooks. Many of them never served time at all but were fined or put on probation.
Among them was John Gordon Smith of Littleton, who was sentenced to five years’ probation in 1988 for making a false statement to a federal agency.
