The first Black Secret Service agent who was assigned to protect a president is among the first three people pardoned by President Joe Biden, the White House announced on Tuesday.
Abraham Bolden Sr., was assigned to a detail protecting President John F. Kennedy in 1961 at Kennedy’s own request. But in 1964, he was accused of trying to sell a classified Secret Service document. His first trial ended in a hung jury but he was later convicted in a second trial despite witnesses testifying that they had lied to please the prosecution.
In addition to Bolden’s pardon, Biden released the names of 77 others who received pardons or commutations of their sentences, many of them Black and Hispanic people who were convicted of drug-related crimes at the mass incarceration era. Because of reforms to sentencing laws passed after their convictions, many of the convicted would have spent far less time in prison, or none at all, if convicted today.
