Chevron Lawyers Lobbied President Biden to Kill My Pardon. We Fight On for Freedom and Justice.

President Biden was incredibly small-minded at the end of his term. He denied my pardon and pardoned far fewer people than any of his predecessors.

(Before reading this article, if you would consider purchasing or upgrading to a paid subscription I would appreciate it. This is one of the few ways I can generate income after Chevron took my law license and President Biden denied me a pardon. If not, no worries at all. Please read on.)

It’s official: pardon denied.

Only 22 minutes before his four-year term ended, President Biden pardoned five more of his family members in addition to the earlier pardon of his son Hunter. I had a glimmer of hope. I thought that after receiving support from 34 members of Congress and more than 100 leading civil society organizations, the President would act.

Minutes later it hit me.

This particular dream had died — for now.

Biden prevaricated for days on my pardon. I’ve gotten word from inside the Biden team that we — meaning those of us who supported this campaign — were able to push my pardon to the very top of the White House. In fact, it was discussed for days by the President’s top advisors. I was told Chevron’s lawyers fought with a bizarre intensity to kill it.

I also want to ask: why the hell were Chevron lawyers allowed inside the White House to argue against a pardon for the only human rights lawyer in history who was jailed by an oil company?

I see the end result as a capitulation by Mr. Biden to corporate power at the expense of the planet and the rule of law. It was also an illustration of a certain small-mindedness, made more evident given the blanket pardons handed out by Trump to the January 6 insurrectionists on his first day in office. I agree with Trump on very little. But why can’t leaders of the Democratic party act with the same bold confidence for stuff they believe in?

Think about that. Biden would not pardon one human rights lawyer who was innocent and was targeted by Chevron in the first corporate prosecution ever. Yet Trump wasted no time in pardoning 1,500 people who tried to interrupt the election and overthrow the government. This level of timidity by Democrats helps explain why the party did not win the Presidency.

The pictures in this post cover moments in the life of a man from North Florida who fought for human rights around the world. I want people to understand that I’ve been in this work for a long time. The first was shot in 1984 at the outset of my career; the second, my first trip to Ecuador in 1993; then, on day one of the trial against Chevron in the Amazon, in 2003; finally, exiting a US court in 2021 after being sentenced to prison following Chevron’s illegal private prosecution. It’s largely been a journey of triumph for us and shame for Chevron and our government.

Journalist in Latin America, 1984

Lawyer on first trip to Ecuador, 1993

First day of trial against Chevron in Ecuador, 2003

Emerging from court in Manhattan after being sentenced to prison following an illegal Chevron criminal prosecution, 2021

Please know I’m moving forward with the same determination as always. We will continue battling for a pardon and for justice for the Amazon communities.

That said, I weep over what an affront President Biden’s decision is to the people of Ecuador. Many are dying from Chevron’s toxic waste while our government protects the oil giant that inflicted the harm. I think of all the people who have passed while Chevron ignores multiple court orders to pay compensation. I’m thinking of you, Rosa Moreno — my friend and nurse extraordinaire who died from cancer.

President Biden got a lot of attention for commuting entire categories of drug offenders and others. But he was very stingy when it came to issuing pardons for individuals compared to other Presidents. (A commutation ends a sentence. A pardon ends a sentence and nullifies a conviction.) Not counting his family members, the former President pardoned only 70 people over the course of his entire term; President Clinton pardoned more than twice that number just on the last day of his second term. Presidents Obama, Bush, and Trump each pardoned more than twice as many people as President Biden.

Even the long-overdue and last-minute commutation President Biden issued to Indigenous leader Leonard Peltier — who spent 50 years in prison after an egregiously flawed trial and whose own prosecutor had urged his full release — did not reflect a generosity of spirit. Almost 81 and nearing death, Peltier must now go home where it is likely he will be forced to spend the rest of his life detained with an electronic ankle bracelet — exactly what I had to do for almost three years because of Chevron’s corporate prosecution of me.

There is a major silver lining. Support for my pardon from dozens of elected leaders in the United States (including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Jim McGovern, Rep. Jamie Raskin, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib) along with 100 major civil society groups has catapulted us to a new level of possibility. Your voices and beliefs made a monumental difference. The way we pushed this to the top is more proof of what we can accomplish together.

Because of the growth of the pardon campaign, we will better-positioned for the next battle — one which involves getting my law license reinstated and forcing Chevron to comply with the law by compensating the people it poisoned in Ecuador.

Finally, I want to thank certain people for their extraordinary efforts: my lawyer Natali Segovia, the director of the Water Protector Legal Collective; Rep. McGovern, who was instrumental in organizing the congressional letter; Paul Paz y Mino from Amazon Watch, an organization that has stood shoulder to shoulder with the Amazon communities for decades; and friends Giada Lubomirski, Roger Waters and Susan Sarandon for the unwavering support. There’s so many more.

We fight on. As always, I am so grateful for the support. Please stay with us.

-Steven