Two Chinese spies and a Chinese national who was charged for disseminating child pornography were part of a White House prisoner swap as Biden's presidency nears the end.
On Nov. 22, Biden granted clemency to Yanjun Xu, Ji Chaoqun and Shanlin Jin.
Their releases were part of a prisoner swap that returned three wrongfully detained Americans from Chinese custody: Mark Swidan, Kai Li, and John Leung.
The three Americans returned to the U.S. before Thanksgiving.
Xu and Chaoqun were both Chinese nationals who were convicted of espionage in the U.S.
Xu, according to a release from the Department of Justice, was the first Chinese government intelligence officer ever to be extradited to the United States to stand trial and was sentenced to 20 years.
According to court documents, Xu targeted American aviation companies, recruited employees to travel to China, and solicited their proprietary information, all on behalf of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
In one example, noted in court documents, Xu attempted to steal technology related to GE Aviation’s exclusive composite aircraft engine fan module – which no other company in the world has been able to duplicate – to benefit the Chinese state.
The Department of Justice said that Xu openly discussed his effort to steal U.S. military information in addition to commercial aviation trade secrets.
Chaoqun was arrested and convicted after working with Xu on behalf of the CCP.
The federal agency said that Xu recruited and "handled" Chaoqun, who was stationed in Chicago during the duration of the scheme.
The DOJ said that Xu directed Chaoqun to collect "biographical information on people to potentially recruit to work with them."
"Xu’s handling and placement of a spy within the United States to obtain information regarding aviation technology and employees is yet another facet of Xu’s egregious crimes towards the United States and further justifies the significant sentence of imprisonment he received today," said U.S. Attorney Parker at the time of the pair's conviction.
Jin was serving his sentence after being convicted of possessing more than 47,000 images of child pornography while a doctoral student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 2021.
Biden commuted on Thursday the sentences of 1,499 people. He is also pardoning 39 individuals who were convicted of non-violent crimes.
President-elect Trump is set to take office in a little over a month, on January 20. He has said that he will immediately pardon people convicted of participating in the January 6, 2021, riot in the U.S. Capitol.
Trump will be able to enact some of his promises immediately after taking office, including issuing executive orders and firing government officials.
Allison Robbert-Pool/Getty Images
Trump has promised to do a variety of different things on "Day One" of his second term.
Much of his agenda will take time to implement, but there are things he could start immediately.
Among the first items could be pardons for January 6-related offenses.
President-elect Donald Trump has outlined clear plans on how he plans to spend his first day back in the White House.
He plans to spend his first few hours signing executive orders rolling back some of President Biden's policies, considering pardons for a number of people convicted of January 6-related offenses, and launch his mass deportation program.
Some of the early items on Trump's list are already crossed off. Trump no longer has to fire special counsel Jack Smith, who has moved to dismiss his criminal cases against Trump. Speculation that the president-elect might fire FBI Director Christopher Wray is also moot. Wray announced he would resign before Trump is sworn in.
Other aspects of Trump's agenda, particularly his promises to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits, will require Congress to act.
Trump has also conceded that some of his pledges, like "ending inflation," may be difficult to fulfill. Fellow Republicans are also pressuring the president-elect to expand his agenda to include items like nixing the IRS' free direct tax-filing tool.
Tariffs: Trade wars are likely to return
The president-elect made clear just before Thanksgiving that he intends to use tariffs much like he did during his first term.
In a series of posts, Trump pledged to levy a 25% tariff on all products coming into the US from Mexico and Canada. Chinese imports would get an additional 10%.
He said the tariffs would be among his first actions after being sworn in — meaning he'll likely return to his reliance on a law that allows a president wide discretion to impose tariffs in the event of a national emergency.
Trump said the tariffs are needed to take migration and fentanyl more seriously. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum quickly retorted that her nation may be forced to impose its own retaliatory tariffs.
During his first term, Trump repeatedly threatened to use tariffs as a cudgel, though he did not always follow through.
Executive orders: Immigration and likely legal challenges
Some of Trump's most readily achievable promises are related to immigration, an area where the White House and Executive Branch have a significant say. In the closing days of the campaign, Trump underlined his commitment to getting to work right away on building "the largest deportation force" in the nation's history. The American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have said they would challenge Trump's actions in court, meaning that anything begun on Day One will only be the beginning of a potentially long legal fight.
Trump also repeatedly promised to curtail parole, which allows immigrants to temporarily live in the US, often for humanitarian reasons. He also pushed debunked claims about secret "migrant flights," which he also promised to ban on day one.
Trump has promised to issue several executive orders when he takes office, though some of them are likely to be challenged in court.
For example, Trump has pledged to sign an executive order revoking birthright citizenship, which is enshrined in the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
During the Republican primary, he pledged to take executive action "banning schools from promoting critical race theory or transgender insanity."
It's likely that such an action could mirror an executive order President Joe Biden revoked after taking office, which at the time prohibited the federal government and federal contractors from conducting workplace trainings on "divisive concepts." A federal judge later blocked prohibitions on certain trainings.
Pardons and personnel decisions: January 6 rioters could get immediate pardons
Trump said he could take action on January 6-related pardons "within the first nine minutes."
He has long maintained that some people arrested or convicted of offenses related to the Capitol riot were overcharged. Trump is likely to avoid any personal legal consequences at the federal level for his efforts to overturn the election. Smith's 2020-charges against Trump were dismissed in a way that would allow them to be refiled once the president-elect leaves office in 2029.
In an interview with Time Magazine, Trump said his focus is on non-violent offenders and that he will weigh potential pardons on a "case-by-case" basis.
"We're going to look at each individual case, and we're going to do it very quickly, and it's going to start in the first hour that I get into office," Trump said to the publication during a wide ranging interview. "And a vast majority of them should not be in jail. A vast majority should not be in jail, and they've suffered gravely."
Some of Trump's promises are more simple and involve firing government officials he does not like.
At a Bitcoin conference in July, Trump also pledged to fire Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, on "day one" and appoint a replacement. Gensler has angered many in the cryptocurrency community, which Trump and his campaigned courted ahead of the 2024 election. Gensler, too, has headed off a potential showdown by announcing he will resign before Trump's inauguration
Trump has also pledged to pardon January 6 rioters "if they're innocent," which he would be able to do as soon as his first day in office.
"Day One" promises that Trump may not be able to fulfill
Some "day one" commitments are simply not possible.
At times during the campaign, Trump pledged to "end inflation" just hours after taking office. No one, including the president, can single-handedly lower broad price levels set across the entire US economy.
Prices reached record highs earlier in the Biden administration, but since then inflation has continued to cool. Many economists are concerned that Trump's protectionist trade policies could exacerbate inflation. He has repeatedly rejected this view, but conceded lowering grocery prices will be difficult.
"Look, they got them up," Trump said to Time. "I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard. But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down."
The federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden’s tax case issued a sharp rebuke of President Biden's claim that his son was unfairly treated as well as the president's delivery method following the president's last-minute pardon.
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi, who is based in the Central District of California and was nominated by President-elect Trump, accused President Biden in a scathing five-page order of "rewriting history" with the pardon and suggested that the breadth of the pardon granted to his son is unconstitutional.
"The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history," he wrote.
The judge voiced his displeasure that the president alerted the judicial system of his order to pardon his son via a White House press release.
"Rather than providing a true and correct copy of the pardon with the notice, Mr. Biden provided a hyperlink to a White House press release presenting a statement by the President regarding the pardon and the purported text of the pardon," he wrote.
"In short, a press release is not a pardon," he continued.
Scarsi continued, reacting to the president's statement on his son's tax case: "the President asserts that Mr. Biden ‘was treated differently’ from others ‘who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions,’ implying that Mr. Biden was among those individuals who untimely paid taxes due to addiction. But he is not."
"According to the President, ‘[n]o reasonable person who looks at the facts of [Mr. Biden’s] cases can reach any other conclusion than [Mr. Biden] was singled out only because he is [the President’s] son.’ But two federal judges expressly rejected Biden’s arguments that the Government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the President. And the President’s own Attorney General and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges," Scarsi wrote.
"In the President’s estimation, this legion of federal civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people," he said.
The judge said he would dispose of the case once he receives the official pardon from "the appropriate executive agency."
He also vacated Hunter Biden’s sentencing, which was scheduled for Dec. 16. The charges carried up to 17 years behind bars, but the first son would likely have faced a much shorter sentence under federal sentencing guidelines.
"Subject to the following discussion, the Court assumes the pardon is effective and will dispose of the case. The Supreme Court long has recognized that, notwithstanding its nearly unlimited nature, the pardon power extends only to past offenses," he wrote.
Hunter Biden, 54, has had a busy year in court, kicking off his first trial in Delaware in June, when he faced three felony firearm offenses, before he pleaded guilty in a separate felony tax case in September.
President Biden pardoning his son is a departure from his previous remarks to the media over the summer when he insisted he would not pardon the first son.
"Yes," President Biden told ABC News when asked if he would rule out pardoning Hunter ahead of his guilty verdict in the gun case.
Days later, following a jury of Hunter’s peers finding him guilty of three felony firearm offenses, the president again said he would not pardon his son.
"I am not going to do anything," Biden said after Hunter was convicted. "I will abide by the jury’s decision."
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
Fox News Digital's Emma Colton and Andrea Margolis contributed to this report.
