YOUR MESSAGE TO THE OFFICE OF THE PARDON ATTORNEY

Messages to the Office the Pardon Attorney (PARDON) may be submitted via this form or may be directly submitted to USPardon.Attorney@usdoj.gov. However, please don’t duplicate efforts by using the below form and then also submitting the same message directly to the Office mailbox or you will prolong the time it takes for us to respond.

Your question or comments will be forwarded to the appropriate employee in PARDON for a response. PARDON does not handle state convictions (contact the Governor or state official), expungement (contact the judicial branch), or immigration issues (contact DHS-ICE). Any question or comment that falls outside of this Office’s mission will be deleted without a response.

Please note:

  • Before sending us your information, please read our Website Privacy Policy and the Privacy Act Statement below for details about how we handle personal information.
     

This Office cannot respond to every item of correspondence that is submitted to us. However, every submission is given appropriate attention, and if it relates to a pending petition for clemency, it is also added to the corresponding clemency case file. If upon further review of your correspondence, we require additional information or a further discussion, we will be sure to contact you. Please rest assured that your voices and views are being heard.

DISCLOSURE OF FILES REGARDING REASON FOR CLEMENCY


As a general matter, Presidents in recent times have rarely announced their reasons for granting or denying clemency, although the President may choose to do so in a given case. Consistent with long-standing policy, if the President does not issue a public statement concerning his action in a clemency matter, no explanation is provided by the Department of Justice. Moreover, deliberative communications pertaining to agency and presidential decision-making are confidential and not available under existing case law interpreting the Freedom of Information Act and Privacy Act.

 

PRIVACY ACT STATEMENT

The primary purpose for the collection of the information on this form is to assist individuals in contacting OPA concerning questions or comments related to clemency matters. The authority by which information is collected on this website form is 5 U.S.C. 301 and 44 U.S.C. 3101, as well as 28 CFR §§ 1.1 through 1.11.

 

Petitions, reports, memoranda, and communications submitted or furnished in connection with the consideration of a petition for executive clemency generally shall be available only to the officials concerned with the consideration of the petition. However, they may be made available for inspection, in whole or in part, when in the judgment of the Attorney General their disclosure is required by law or the ends of justice. 28 CFR § 1.5.

 

Any information you provide may also be disclosed pursuant to a “routine use” under the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552(a) (2012), listed in a DOJ System of Records Notice, which may include: JUSTICE/DOJ-003 Correspondence Management Systems (CMS) for the Department of Justice, and JUSTICE/OPA-001 Executive Clemency Case Files/Executive Clemency Tracking System.

 

Your disclosure of information to the Department of Justice on this form is voluntary. If you do not complete all or some information fields in this form, however, the Department of Justice may not be able to effectively respond to your feedback.

Updated May 11, 2018

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