Politics

Eric Holder: Obama’s ‘Clemency Project’ will help drug offenders sentenced under ‘the old regime’

Patrick Howley Political Reporter
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Attorney General Eric Holder criticized drug sentences doled out under “the old regime” in a video Monday announcing the Obama administration’s “Clemency Project 2014.”

“In 2010, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act reducing unfair disparities in sentences imposed on people for offenses involving different forms of cocaine. But there’s still too many people in federal prison who were sentenced under the old regime and who, as a result, will have to spend far more time in prison than they would if sentenced today for exactly the same crime. This is simply not right,” Holder says in the video.

President Obama could grant clemency to “hundreds, perhaps thousands” of drug offenders as part of the project, a senior administration official said Monday. The administration is reportedly making major personnel and process changes to deal with the flood of clemencies that Obama is expected to grant.

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